Effect of Clay Nanoparticles’ Addition on Hardness and Thermal Behavior of Hollow PMMA Microspheres/Unsaturated Polyester Syntactic Foam

In the present research, the effect of clay nanoparticles’ addition on the thermal stability and hardness of the hybrid syntactic foams was studied. Morphology of the foam samples containing different wt % clay nanoparticles was determined using SAX. The thermal stability of foam samples containing 5 wt % of microspheres and 0, 1, 2 and 3 wt % of clay nanoparticles was evaluated using TGA. Rockwell hardness of samples was also measured according to ASTM D 785. The SAX analysis revealed exfoliated morphology for nano-clay platelets in foam sample containing 1 wt % nanoparticles, and it was changed to intercalated morphology, by increasing nanoparticles’ content. TGA results and hardness measurements revealed enhancing thermal stability and hardness of 1 wt % nano-clay embedded foam samples. Further increasing nanoparticles’ content had no significant effect on hardness value changes; however TGA study showed decreasing of thermal stability –still over than neat sample - with increasing nano-clay content.