Polypropylene/polyethylene (PP/PE) nanocomposites for advanced applications

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In this collaborative research with industry, we will create polymer blend nano composites based on polyethylene/polypropylene (PE/PP) blends with advanced nano materials such as carbon nanotubes (CNT), graphene nano ribbons (GNR) and carbon nanofiber (CNF) and nano clay. Polymer nanocomposites are materials of the future and can access property combinations previously unachievable because of exceptionally high interfacial area and similarity of filler size to the polymer molecular size. Because of this, nanocomposites are currently used in high technology applications; and the industry is predicted to be $6 Billion in size by 2018, yet there is little understanding about how materials chemistry and polymer processing influences structure and final properties of these nano composites. The aerospace and mass transit industries are keen to develop new materials based on nano materials and we propose to create new materials and develop new technologies to help them exploit this new area.