Mechanical properties and Rheology of HDPE/Nanosilica Nanocomposites:Effect of Interface Modification

In the present study, High Density Polyethylene (HDPE)-based nanocomposites containing different amounts of Nano-sized silica (NS) were prepared via melt compounding in an internal mixer. HDPE grafted Maleic Anhydride (HDPE-g-MA) was used for interface modification between filler and polymer. The results showed that the addition of nanosilica increases the tensile strength and storage modulus (G’), but decreases the impact strength of HDPE. The use of HDPE-g-MA as a compatibilizer, led to more improvement in the tensile strength of samples and prevented the impact strength decrease of them. It was shown that, by using HDPE-g-MA, the storage modulus of samples is decreased, which could be due to increasing the adhesion between matrix and filler and preventing the network formation of silica nanoparticles