Nano composites 2013

Composite materials that traditionally incorporate micron-scale reinforcements in a bulk matrix offer opportunities to tailor material properties such as hardness, tensile strength, and thermal and electrical conductivity. With the advent of nano materials, nano composites are multiphase materials where one of the phases has at least one dimension of less than 100 nm. The properties of nano composite materials depend not only on the properties of the building components but also on their morphologies, microstructures, and interfacial characteristics. The published works are briefly addressed as follows. The paper from Canada reports that dispersion, microstructure, and dielectric response of polyethylene (PE)/clay nano composites were affected by the incorporation of anhydride modified polyethylene (PE-MA) as the compatibilizer. It was observed that the relaxation rate of the Maxwell-Wagner-Sillars process increased as the degree of dispersion increased. This correlation shows that broadband dielectric spectroscopy can be used as a macroscopic tool to evaluate the quality of dispersion in nano composite materials. The paper from Egypt studies the rheological behavior of a different concentration of carbon nano tubes (CNTs) as additive on lithium grease under various settings of shear rate, shear stress, and apparent viscosity. The authors concluded that the optimum percentage of CNTs in the grease composite was 2% and further confirmed the importance of the correlation between rheological properties and the grease microscopic structure.