Feasibility of plasma treated clay in clay/polymer nanocomposites powders for use Laser Sintering (LS)

The addition of small quantities of nano-clay to nylon is known to improve mechanical properties of the resulting nano-composite. However, achieving a uniform dispersion and distribution of the clay within the base polymer can prove difficult. A demonstration of the fabrication and characterization of plasma-treated organoclay/Nylon12 nanocomposite was carried out with the aim of achieving better dispersion of clay platelets on the Nylon12 particle surface. Air-plasma etching was used to enhance the compatibility between clays and polymers to ensure a uniform clay dispersion in composite powders. Downward heat sintering (DHS) in a hot press is used to process neat and composite powders into tensile and XRD specimens. Morphological studies using Low Voltage Scanning Electron Microscopy (LV-SEM) were undertaken to characterize the fracture surfaces and clay dispersion in powders and final composite specimens. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) testing performed that the etched clay (EC) is more stable than the nonetched clay (NEC), even at higher temperatures. The influence of the clay ratio and the clay plasma treatment process on the mechanical properties of the nano-composites was studied by tensile testing. The composite fabricated from (3% EC/N12) powder showed ~19 % improvement in elastic modulus while the composite made from (3% NEC/N12) powder was improved by only 14%). Most notably however is that the variation between tests is strongly reduced when etch clay is used in the composite. We attribute this to a more uniform distribution and better dispersion of the plasma treated clay within polymer powders and ultimately the composite.