The combustion behavior of polyacrylate ester/graphite oxide composites

There is an increasing interest in polymer layered silicate nanocomposites, due to the enhanced properties of these systems. An additional layered system is the graphite oxide system and this has been studied as polyacrylate ester nanocomposites. These have been characterized using X-ray diffraction and a variety of fire tests. There is a significant change in the oxygen index for nanocomposites which is absent for microcomposites, unlike the situation for the clay-based systems. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed that the surface was covered with a graphite oxide-like material at high temperatures for the nanocomposites, suggesting that this nano-dimensional material operates as a barrier, exactly as proposed for polymer-clay systems. Copyright (C) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.