Particle Alignment Control in Polymer Composites

Presenter: 

Kenan Song

Authors: 

Kenan Song a, Roberta Polak a, Dayong Chen a, Khalid A. Askar b,*, Michael F. Rubner c,*, Robert E. Cohen d,*

Author Affiliation: 

a Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Department of Chemical Engineering, MIT, 77 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA, USA, 02139. b,* Professor of MASDAR, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, MIT, 77 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA, USA, 02139. Correspondence email: kaskar@mit.edu c,* TDK Professor of Polymer Materials Science and Engineering, and Director of CMSE, MIT, 77 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA, USA, 02139. Correspondence email: rubner@mit.edu d,* St. Laurent Professor of Chemical Engineering Department, 77 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA, USA, 02139. Correspondence email: recohen@mit.edu

Abstract: 

Ceramic particle filled polymer composites stand for a class of materials that are strong, lightweight and have remarkable toughness. Here we present a simple coating method that combines real-time colloidal assembly with existing spraying method to create highly programmable discontinuous particle involved structural composites. A dynamic flow from spray coating aligned the halloysite nanotubes, and subsequently the injected solution onto glass slides provides specific viscosity that controls the degree of nanotubar alignment. It has been found that the preferential aligned halloysite reached 273 GPa in modulus reinforcement. The intrinsic modulus are around 500 GPa at a diameter of 50nm. This work showed tailored orientation factor of around 0.1, 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8. The successful management of particle orientation demonstrated a high level of possible customization in nanotube filled composites and can be potential in industrial application for strctural composites fabrications.