PAPER CANCELLED - Development of Novel Specialty Elastomer Based Chlorinated Polyethylene (CPE)/Ethylene Methacrylate Copolymer (EMA)/Sepiolite Nanocomposite

Study of polymer blend nanocomposites have been a topic of research from past more than a decade. Incorporation of nanomaterial into polymer matrix improves various technical properties of the base material. The present work reports a facile one step covalent modification technique of sepiolite needles by in-situ polymerization of ε-caprolactone and by using simple silane modification with the aid of organosilane (3-Aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (APTES). The effective modification of sepiolite was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), High Resolution-Transmission Electron Microscopy (HR-TEM) and water contact angle measurement.   Nanocomposites of chlorinated polyethylene (CPE)/ethylene methacrylate copolymer (EMA) blend (60/40 ratio) were prepared by conventional melt mixing the polymer blend with the pristine and covalently modified sepiolite. For the ease of comparison, equal filler content in all the nanocomposites was maintained (5 wt%). The effect of modified sepiolite on the mechanical and thermal properties of CPE/EMA blend of 60/40 ratio was precisely studied by ultimate tensile testing, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA).