Polymer/Clay Nanocomposites Based on Aliphatic-Aromatic Polyamide Containing Thiazole Ring and New Organomodified Nanosilicate Layers: Synthesis, Characterization, and Thermal Properties Study

New polyamide/clay nanocomposites (PACN) were produced using semicrystalline polyamide (PA) containing thiazole ring and new organoclay (OC) through solution intercalation technique. For further study, PA/Cloisite-15A nanocomposites (PAAN) were also prepared using PA and Cloisite-15A. X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results showed a good dispersion for OC in the PA matrix. A meaningful decrease in intensity of absorption from ultraviolet-visible spectra as well as from fluorescence emissions of resulted PACN were observed. As thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) in nitrogen atmospheres showed, the T-5 and T-10 increased by about 57% and 36%, respectively for PACN containing 5 mass% of OC, as the char yield enhanced greatly, which was about 16.3% higher than the neat PA. Also the TGA results showed that PACN had higher thermal stability than PAAN. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis exhibited higher glass-transition temperature values (T-g) for PACN as compared to the neat PA. (C) 2017 Society of Plastics Engineers