Characterization of Synthesized PMMA-Kaolinite Nanocomposite using infrared Spectroscopy and Laser Raman Spectroscopy

Abstract

Nanocomposite material which contains inorganic nanolayer clay and organic polymer has attracted considerable attention in recent years. Particularly, intercalation of organic polymer into inorganic layered host iii lattice has approved to be an effective way to construct inorganic–organic nanosystem. The Raman and FTIR spectra of kaolinite (layers of silicate with composition A12Si2O5(OH)4, having a diameter of 5–10 m ) were reported. Kaolinite was treated by adding dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) as an aqueous system to expand the interlayer basal spacing. The basal spacing was increased from 7.15 to 11.2 Angstrom. This increase in basal spacing was measured using X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) methed. In the OH stretching region, a Raman band of kaolinite was observed at 3624 cm 1 , and at 3481 cm 1 after being modified. The IR spectra of kaolinite show four and five bands for OH stretching respectively before and after modification. The organic molecules-modified kaolinite (Kaolinite+DMSO) was then used as clay precursor to synthesize the polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA)/kaolinite intercalation nanocomposites via solution intercalation. This study has covered eight nanocomposites samples classified into two sets, the first of which contains four samples with different ratios of (kaolinite+DMSO)/PMMA while the other contain PMMA and pristine kaolinite. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) was also used to characterize the samples.