Clay-based Polymer Nano-composites (CPN)

Abstract As is well established in these reviews, CPN research is a complex subject that is both timely and developing rapidly. While the term “polymer-clay nanocomposite” is more conventional in the literature, the term CPN is employed in this volume in order to stress the importance of the clay science. The number of publications on CPN has increased exponentially since the first Toyota report and patent for clay mineral nylon-6 nanocomposites, although surprisingly their commercial applications are comparatively rare. This may be partly because a broad description of the processing-morphology/structure properties complex relationship is still lacking. The variations of layered filler, organic modifier, polymer matrix, processing parameters and characterization methods, leave endless combinations for study. In the voluminous published literature, one often finds contradictory materials behavior. It is becoming apparent that morphological effects are absolutely crucial to properties, but this is a parameter that is difficult to quantify experimentally.