Structure and properties of PP/TiO₂ based polymer nanocomposites

Abstract

The structure and dielectric measurements made on the nanocomposites based on PP polypropylen and TiO₂ nanoparticles are reported in this paper. It has been defined that, the incorporation of TiO₂ nanoparticles to the PP matrix enhances the dielectric constant of nanocomposites in comparison with the pristine polypropylene. The dependence of dielectric permittivity of nanocomposites of different volume contents of titanium dioxide (TiO₂) nanoparticles changes with an extremum, for 1% content of TiO₂ nanoparticles in polypropylene matrix the dielectric permittivity (er') reaches at its peak and then gradually decreaseMoreover the posistor effect is observed for nanocomposites based on PP/TiO₂. Thermal properties of PP/TiO₂ nanocomposites were also studied. With the addition of nanoparticles with the volume content of 1% the degradation temperature for nanocomposites shifts to relatively higher temperatures (54 °C) as compared to the pure polymer. At lower concentrations, nanoparticles play the role of structurant, which in turn leads to the enhancement of electrophysical and thermal properties of these nanocomposites.

Keywords:

• Nanocomposites
• nanoparticles
• titanium dioxide
• polypropylene
• polymer matrix