High-Performance Poly(vinyl alcohol) Nanocomposites Filled with Individual Montmorillonite Nanolayers

Filling poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) with clay, typically montmorillonite (MMT), has been proven to be an attractive option to meet the high-performance requirements of PVA-based materials. In previous reports MMT or organophilic MMT (OMMT) were directly used as fillers. As a result, both exfoliated and intercalated MMT structures coexisted in the resultant nanocomposites. However, there is still a large gap between these nanocomposites and ideally designed ones where individual clay nanolayers (CNLs) are expected to be uniformly dispersed in the PVA. With this in mind, an ameliorative solution casting process is proposed here to prepare PVA nanocomposites. For this purpose the CNLs were prepared ahead of time by exfoliation of MMT in water and then used as fillers. Assessment of the dispersion state of the CNLs in PVA revealed that they (≤5.0 wt%) were randomly and uniformly dispersed (down to the level of individual silicate layers) in and formed strong interfacial interactions with the PVA. This resulted in significantly enhanced physical properties of the resultant nanocomposites relative to neat PVA. In particular, a 104.7% increment in the yield stress was achieved with 5.0 wt% CNLs, much larger than the 15–70% increments of previous PVA nanocomposites using MMT or OMMT as fillers. Additionally, excellent optical clarity of the PVA was obtained for the nanocomposites.