Cadmium telluride (CdTe) tetrapods were synthesized via multiple injections of the Te precursor by utilizing bifunctional ligands. Subsequently, tetrapod-shaped semiconducting inorganic-organic nanocomposites (i.e., P3HT-CdTe tetrapod nanocomposites) were produced by directly grafting conjugated polymer ethynyl-terminated poly(3-hexylthiophene) (i.e., P3HT-≡) onto azide-functionalized CdTe tetr...

Nanoscale control of structure in polymer nanocomposites is critical for their performance but has been difficult to investigate systematically due to the lack of a suitable experimental model. In this work, we investigated the role of nanoparticle layer separation in the finite deformation response of layered polyurethane(PU-) montmorillonite (MTM) nanocomposites. A series of multilayered nano...

Polymer layered silicate (PLS) nanocomposites have been prepared with diglycidyl ether of bisphenol-A (DGEBA) epoxy resin as the matrix and organically modified montmorillonite (MMT) as the clay nanofiller. Resin-clay mixtures with different clay contents (zero, two, five and 10 wt%) were cured, both isothermally and non-isothermally, using a poly(ethyleneimine) hyperbranched polymer (HBP), the...

The melt rheological properties of layered silicate nanocomposites with maleic anhydride (MA) functionalized polypropylene are contrasted to those based on ammonium-terminated polypropylene. While the MA functionalized PP based nanocomposites exhibit solid-like linear viscoelastic behavior, consistent with the formation of a long-lived percolated nanoparticle network, the single-end ammonium fu...

3 Dispersion of particles, as evidenced by changes in their number distributions (PNDs) and 4 concentrations (PNCs), in urban street canyons, is still not well understood. This study compares 5 measurements by a fast–response particle spectrometer (DMS500) of the PNDs and the PNCs (5– 6 1000 nm, sampled at 1 Hz) at street and rooftop levels in a Cambridge (UK) street canyon, and 7 examines mixi...

BACKGROUND Associations between airborne particles and health outcomes have been documented worldwide; however, there is limited information regarding health effects associated with different particle sizes. OBJECTIVES We explored the association between size-fractionated particle number concentrations (PNCs) and daily mortality in Shenyang, China. METHODS We collected daily data on cause-s...

Introduction Layered-silicate based polymer nanocomposites have become an attractive set of organic-inorganic materials not only for their obvious potential as technological materials, but also for providing a convenient macroscopic system to study fundamental scientific issues concerning confined polymers [1]. Studying the formation, structure and dynamics of these nanocomposites can lead to a...

This paper reviews the mechanism of the conducting process of carbon nanotubes (CNTs)-reinforced polymer nanocomposites. Comparison of the two different mechanisms, the formation of the conducting network and the hopping of the electrons, are discussed. The paper also describes the critical factors that determine percolation thresholds or the conductivity of the nanocomposites. By summarizing t...

Polymer nanocomposites are increasingly used in applications that are subjected to harsh environments. Owing to polymer's susceptibility to photodegradation, nanofillers in a polymer nanocomposite may be released into the environments during the composite's life cycle. Such release potentially poses an environmental health and safety problem and may hinder commercialization of these advanced ma...

Fabrication of nanocomposites from immiscible polymer blend system has been represented in this work. A new type of natural clay named Halloysite Nanotubes (HNTs) are modified by Polyethyleneimine (PEI) and these PEI grafted HNTs are incorporated into the immiscible blend system during melt mixing process to prepare halloysite based nanocomposites. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR)...