Morphology and properties of cyanate ester/liquid polyurethane/silica nanocomposites

The high‐speed homogeneous shearing method was applied to prepare nanocomposites of cyanate ester (CE) with liquid polyurethane elastomer (PUR) and silica. To investigate the influence of various components on the morphology and properties of the ternary composites, the binary composites of CE/PUR and CE/silica were also involved in this article. The morphology of the cured materials of binary and ternary systems was investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and the results show that silica nanoparticles were uniformly distributed in the ternary and binary matrix. Phase separation of elastomer in composites was not observed by TEM. FTIR test and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) proved that chemical linking was existent between PUR and CE. Scanning electron microscopy examinations and mechanical properties tests were carried out. The results show that ternary composites displayed higher fracture toughness and impact strength compared with most of the binary systems. This suggests that the addition of PUR and nanosilica can synergistically improve the toughness of CE. DMA studies confirmed that the incorporation of silica can increase the storage modulus and T_g for CE and CE/PUR system, since there are a good adhesion and a strong hydrogen bonding between silica and polymers. The thermal property of ternary composites increases with the increase of silica nanoparticle loading. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 46: 1243–1251, 2008