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

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

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.** In the last decade, our group become a leading authority on electrical properties such as EMI shielding, electrical conductivity, and dielectric permittivity/loss. Hutchinson Aerospace would like to partner with us to leverage our expertise in nanomaterials, particularly, conductive nanocomposites to create new market segments for their products in areas like EMI shielding. They are experts on catalyst technology and customizing polyolefin structure. Both of the groups have significant expertise in polymer blends. The combination of our academic and their industry expertise is extremely synergistic. Researchers in the nanocomposite field typically focus on certain aspects, e.g. synthesis and characterization of nanomaterial or polymer synthesis only or processing and characterization of composite only. Though there has been excellent work performed on each, or on a couple of, the development steps, it is critical to link all the different aspects of creation of novel multiphase materials if we are to have major breakthroughs. The unique ability to perform all the steps of material development provides a significant advantage and capability to make these linkages.**************