Investigating the effects of chemical modification of clay nanoparticles on thermal degradation and mechanical properties of TPU/nanoclay composites

Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU)/clay nanocomposites were prepared via a melt-compounding method using ester type TPU and two different modified organoclays (Cloisite 30B and Cloisite 15A) in different contents. The Effects of the chemical structure and content of the nanoclays on the thermal degradation and mechanical properties of TPU were also investigated. The effect of structural modification on dispersion during melt compounding has been studied by XRD and FTIR analysis. Barrier effect formation and thermal stability in both nanocomposites containing different nanoparticle content have been studied. The effect of chemical modification of the nanoparticles on mechanical properties in all contents has been investigated. The XRD results show that better dispersion near the exfoliated structure obtained for cloisite 30B is due to good interaction via hydrogen bonding between the TPU chains and layered silicate. A high content of the nanoparticles leads to disordering of soft and hard segments in the TPU chains, which is confirmed by FTIR. Mechanical properties analysis shows that the TPU/Cloisite 30B nanocomposites have higher modulus and tensile strength as well as elongation at break by the addition of 2% in both cloisite 30B (C30B) and cloisite 15A (C15A) than other contents of nanoclays.