Extreme shear processing for exfoliating organoclay in nanocomposites with incompatible polymers

Twin screw extrusion at speeds exceeding several thousand rotations per minute (RPM) has the potential to provide extreme shear typically required to break up aggregates and provide good dispersion in polymer nanocomposites. In this work, a novel twin screw extruder with ultra-high screw speed capability has been used to compound the polystyrene (PS) with organically modified nanoclay without using any compatibilizer. The rheological properties and the morphology of the nanocomposites were investigated and compared with simulation after compounding. Screw profiles imparting more and less aggressive mixing were compared over a range of screw speeds from 400 to 4000 RPM. Morphological characterization revealed the necessity of intense shear stress for achieving intercalation and exfoliation when chemical interactions between filler and matrix are unfavorable. The nanocomposites exhibited greater elasticity indicating reinforcement up to a critical screw speed for each screw profile, but further increasing the screw speed resulted in significant polymer degradation, and thus lower viscosity and storage modulus. Moreover, based on calculations of the theoretical adhesion force between the organoclay layers and the shear stress imparted through mixing, the optimized screw speed for a specific screw profile was determined that would overcome lamellar adhesion to form exfoliated nanocomposites, while minimizing the effect of degradation. The resulting model could be extended to any well-defined extruder system as well as other agglomerated nanofillers. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.