Polymer-filled porous MCM-41: An effective means to design polymer-based nanocomposite

Mesoporous MCM-41, whose pore channels were filled with different flexible polymer inside the pore channels, was synthesized with the aid of supercritical CO2 in this study. The polymer was confirmed to be incorporated in the pore channels of MCM-41 using supercritical CO2 as a solvent. The PP/MCM-41-S-Polymer, PP/MCM-41 (without template) and PP/MCM-41(with template) nanocomposites were prepared by compounding. The results of tensile tests showed that different flexible polymer filled mesoporous MCM-41 nanoparticles could simultaneously provide PP with strengthening and toughening effects at rather low filler content. However, the composites were mechanically superior compared to those prepared with MCM-41 without template and MCM-41 with mixture template as fillers due to different interfacial structure between the fillers and the matrix. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.