Silica nanoparticles are widely used as reinforcing fillers for polymers to make polymeric nanocomposites. Due to high hydrophilicity of silica fillers, it is very difficult to disperse them uniformly into hydrophobic polymer matrix. Therefore, to enhance interfacial adhesion between silica particles and polymer matrix, various kinds of silane coupling agents are widely used to modify silica particle surfaces to enhance interfacial adhesion between them.1,2  We synthesized silica particles with various covalently bonded layer thickness to study effects of different interfacial thickness on the physical and mechanical properties of silica nanocomposites.To make different interfacial thickness, we treated silica nanoparticles first with bis[3-(trimethoxysilyl)propyl]amine (BTMA), which is one of dipodal silane coupling agents having estimated hydrolysis resistance of 100,000 times greater than conventional coupling agents.3 After BTMA treatment, we used different molecular weights of poly(ethylene glycol)diacrylate(PEDGA) to attach reactive acrylate functionality to their surfaces by Michael addition reaction.4 The synthesis scheme is shown in Figure 1 as below.

Effects of the attached layer thickness of silica nanoparticles on the properties of UV-cured polymer nanocomposites

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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