Processing, rheology and structure of melt compounded PBT-clay nanocomposites having different chemical composition.

In this study the melt flow behavior of poly(butylene terephthalate)-clay nanocomposites produced by melt compounding was investigated. Four commercial organo-modified montmorillonites, differing mainly by the organic treatment used in the modification, were employed as nanometric fillers and blended with the poly(butylene terephthalate) (PBT) at two weight percentages each (6 and 9wt%). The process was carried out using a laboratory-scale twin-screw extruder at two different extrusion rates, in order to evaluate the effect of the shear rate during the process on microstructure and flow properties. In this regard, the nanocomposite samples were submitted to morphological analyses and rheological measurements in the dynamic regime. The effect of temperature on the flow behavior of the hybrids with respect to the neat PBT matrix was also investigated. The obtained data were related to the hybrid compositions and then to the chemical affinity between polymer and clay type. All the reported results have shown a gradual transition from a pseudo-Newtonian trend towards a pseudo-solid-like flow behavior with the increase of the clay loading and the dispersion/exfoliation level of the clay particles, due to the corresponding increase of the polymer-silicate interactions that slow the relaxation times of the PBT chains. Moreover, it was also evident that for the fillers having the higher affinity towards the PBT the nano-scale dispersion benefit from higher residence times, and therefore slower extrusion rates; on the contrary, for the fillers having poor interaction with the polymer, higher shear stress, and therefore higher extrusion rates, are needed to disrupt the clay tactoids in smaller particles. In the last part of the work, in order to verify if a relationship between flow properties and degree of exfoliation does actually exist, the rheological data were also processed using a simple semi-quantitative empirical method proposed in literature. The method failed for our systems, thus underlining the insufficiency of the rheological response alone in quantifying the exfoliation degree of an organoclay in the matrix