[nanoPost] Barrier Properties of Nano Silica Flakes Enhanced PET

Research Centre UK

It is well known that layered-structured nanofillers are an effective approach in improving barrier properties of polymers. The major past work conducted was clay based polymer nanocomposites. The problem with clay/polymer nanocomposite for this application is the difficulty in clay exfoliation in many polymers.

In order to overcome this problem, A long-term research has been conducted  with the aim to explore novel flake-shaped nano-fillers which do not have layered structure. Compared to clay/polymer nanocomposites, the advantage of using such flakes is to avoid filler exfoliation problem so that conventional processing techniques can be applied to disperse fillers into polymers uniformly. This paper will report the preliminary work on this project by using nano-silica flakes to enhance the barrier properties of PET.