Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
14
Mechanisms of
Aging and Release
from Weathered
Nanocomposites
Tinh Nguyen, Wendel Wohlleben, and Lipiin Sung
CONTENTS
14.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 315
14.2 Weathering of Polymer Nanocomposites ..................................................... 316
14.3 Release of Fragments from Matrix Degradation: Spontaneous or Induced? ...323
14.4 Characterization of Released Fragments: Detection, Quantification,
Identification ................................................................................................. 328
14.5 Concluding Remarks .................................................................................... 329
References .............................................................................................................. 331
14.1 INTRODUCTION
From wood and tar to today's synthetic plastics, polymers provide indispensable
materials for a wide range of applications. By adding fillers, pigments, and additives,
a variety of polymeric materials with unique properties can be produced. Nanofillers
(i.e., fillers having a dimension below 100 nm), such as spherical nanoparticles, lay-
ered platelets, tubes, and rods, have exceptional properties and high surface area.
Incorporating a small amount (<5 mass%) of the high surface area nanofillers into a
polymer (i.e., polymer nanocomposites) can substantially enhance many properties
of the host matrix, as evidenced in numerous reviews on polymer nanocomposites
for a variety of nanofillers (McNally and Pötschke 2011; Ma et al. 2010; Potts et al.
2011; Li and Zhong 2011; Pavlidou and Papaspyrides 2008; Zou et al. 2008). Today,
polymer nanocomposite applications have gained a strong commercial footing, due
to the outstanding performance of these advanced materials and the efforts of resin
manufacturers and compounders who offer user-friendly products (Future Markets
2012). In 2006, only about 300 commercial products claimed to contain nanomateri-
als (McIntire 2012), but in 2013, more than 1,300 manufacturers around the world
produced commercial nano-enabled products with a market value of 1.6 trillion
315
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