Polypropylene/Nanosilica composites: The effect of polypropylene grafted maleic anhydride compatibiliser and amino silane coupling agent

Abstract

This work is related to composites of polypropylene filled nanosilica with using two types of surface modifier which are polypropylene-grafted-maleic anhydride (PP-g-MA) as compatibiliser and aminopropyl triethoxysilane (APTES) as coupling agent. The composites were prepared by melt compounding method using internal mixer Polydrive Thermo Haake. The mechanical properties and thermal behavior of composites were studied. From the results achieved, the composite system with polypropylene-grafted-maleic anhydride has higher tensile strength compared to the used of silane coupling agent. Thus, the interaction adhesion of polypropylene/nanosilica composites with different surface modifier was estimated by using Einstein equation. From the estimation, composite systems with polypropylene–grafted-maleic anhydride system have higher value of interaction adhesion than composite system with amino silane. While from the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) result, the crystallinity of composite with polypropylene–grafted-maleic anhydride has been increase compared to the amino silane. The morphology of the tensile fracture surface of composites has been viewed through the field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). From the results, it showed that the composite with polypropylene-grafted-maleic anhydride has rough surface fractured area compared to amino silane. This rough area proved that the composite with polypropylene-grafted-maleic anhydride has better tensile strength than composite with amino silane.