Polymer nanocomposite

Polymer nanocomposites (PNC) consist of a polymer or copolymer having nanoparticles or nanofillers dispersed in the polymer matrix. These may be of different shape (e.g., platelets, fibers, spheroids), but at least one dimension must be in the range of 1–50 nm. These PNC's belong to the category of multi-phase systems (MPS, viz. blends, composites, and foams) that consume nearly 95% of plastics production. These systems require controlled mixing/compounding, stabilization of the achieved dispersion, orientation of the dispersed phase, and the compounding strategies for all MPS, including PNC, are similar. Alternatively, polymer can be infiltrated into 1D, 2D, 3D preform creating high content polymer nanocomposites. Polymer nanocomposites (PNC) consist of a polymer or copolymer having nanoparticles or nanofillers dispersed in the polymer matrix. These may be of different shape (e.g., platelets, fibers, spheroids), but at least one dimension must be in the range of 1–50 nm. These PNC's belong to the category of multi-phase systems (MPS, viz. blends, composites, and foams) that consume nearly 95% of plastics production. These systems require controlled mixing/compounding, stabilization of the achieved dispersion, orientation of the dispersed phase, and the compounding strategies for all MPS, including PNC, are similar. Alternatively, polymer can be infiltrated into 1D, 2D, 3D preform creating high content polymer nanocomposites. Polymer nanoscience is the study and application of nanoscience to polymer-nanoparticle matrices, where nanoparticles are those with at least one dimension of less than 100 nm.