ternary blend nanocomposites with two types of organoclays: a study on morphological properties

In this work, we studied the morphology of poly(methyl methacrylate) /polystyrene /polypropylene (pmma/ps/pp, 80/05/15) ternary blend and the corresponding nanocomposites with two types of organoclays (cloisite 15a (c15a) and cloisite 30b (c30b)) prepared by sequential and simultaneous feeding modes. x-ray diffraction was used to determine the intercalation/exfoliation state of the nanoclays in the nanocomposite samples. x-ray diffraction patterns showed that the organoclays were mainly localized in the pmma matrix, and that c30b showed a greater affinity toward the matrix compared to c15a. the corresponding changes in the morphology of the blend samples and the nanocomposites were probed using electron microscopy observations, which showing that at 1 wt% of the organoclays, the original core-shell morphology of the blend was retained regardless of the feeding sequence. at 3 wt% of the organoclays, however, the only case where the core-shell morphology remained intact was with c30b-based nanocomposite samples prepared using sequential feeding mode.