Effect of tiny amount of zinc oxide on morphological and thermal properties of nanocomposite PEBA thin films

Novel PEBA-based nanocomposite thin films were prepared with different low concentrations of ZnO and characterized by AFM, FTIR, FESEM, DSC and TGA. AFM images indicated that the surface roughness of films increased by ZnO loading. FTIR spectroscopy revealed presence of physical interaction between PEBA polymer and ZnO nanoparticles: The results showed that ZnO nanoparticle undergoes an interaction with the C-O-C groups of the PEBA soft segments. DSC analysis showed that incorporation of ZnO caused substantial influence upon the thermal transition of the polyether domain of polymer. TGA showed a significant enhancement of the film thermal properties with ZnO loading. The loading of 0.5 wt% ZnO showed much better dispersion than 1.0 wt% ZnO, while the nanoparticle agglomeration for the latter was observed. (C) 2018 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).