Surface treatment of montmorillonite on the thermal stabilities of bisphenol-A diglycidyl dimethacrylate nanocomposites

Organoclay was chemically modified with nitric acid to study the effect of surface treatment on the interlayer structure of clay and the thermal stabilities of clay–dimethacrylate nanocomposites. The content of oganoclay was 1 wt.%, and dicumyl peroxide was used as a free-radical initiator at a concentration of 1 wt.%. As a result, the FT-IR and EDS results confirmed that the new hydroxyl groups were formed at the acidically treated clay surfaces. The thermal stability of acidically treated clay-modified nanocomposites was significantly higher than that of the neat polymer matrix, due to stronger interfacial interactions between the hydroxyl groups on the silicate layer surfaces and the macromolecular chains in the nanocomposites.