Development of high thermal building nano-insulation material using pu nanocomposites for roofing application / Intan Yusniza Mohamad

Faculty of Chemical & Natural Resources Engineering

Project paper (Bachelor of Chemical Engineering) -- Universiti Malaysia Pahang – 2014

Bibliography : p. 80-87

Polyurethanes (PUs) are one of the most versatile classes of materials today and their demand as a high thermal insulator material continues to grow. The widespread application of PUs necessitates understanding the chemistry elements that improve the thermal stability and mechanical strength as these are crucial prerequisites to obtain the high performance of thermal insulator material for the structures and buildings. The first part of the experiment focuses on the modification of pristine clay with Transition Metal Ions (TMIs), Copper and Ferum using methanol solvent. The objectives of surface modification of pristine clay is due to the incompatibility between hydrophilic clay and hydrophobic polymer. After these modifications, the samples of organoclay are characterized using some sophisticated methods like Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM). FTIR and FESEM results illustrated modified nanoclays had smoother surfaces of pristine clay or montmorillonite (MMT) which proved that modification has taken place successfully. The samples then tested by Thermal Gravimetry Analysis (TGA) and Tensile Test to measure their thermal and mechanical properties respectively. Both the thermal stability and mechanical strength showed positive improvements. Thermal stability is hypothesized to have increased significantly, due to the transition metal ions hindering the pristine clay within the polymer matrices from decomposing easily. The stronger interfacial interaction causes to the increasing of stress at break and the weak interfacial forces may lead to some decreasing of stress at break for nanocomposite. Further research will be required to commercialize findings