Materials 2012, 5(12), 2960-2980; doi:10.3390/ma5122960
Review

Characterization of Nanocomposites by Thermal Analysis

Carola Esposito Corcione* email and Mariaenrica Frigioneemail
Department of Engineering for Innovation, University of Salento, Lecce 73100, Italy
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 10 September 2012; in revised form: 3 December 2012 / Accepted: 10 December 2012 / Published: 19 December 2012
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multifunctional Materials)
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Abstract: In materials research, the development of polymer nanocomposites (PN) is rapidly emerging as a multidisciplinary research field with results that could broaden the applications of polymers to many different industries. PN are polymer matrices (thermoplastics, thermosets or elastomers) that have been reinforced with small quantities of nano-sized particles, preferably characterized by high aspect ratios, such as layered silicates and carbon nanotubes. Thermal analysis (TA) is a useful tool to investigate a wide variety of properties of polymers and it can be also applied to PN in order to gain further insight into their structure. This review illustrates the versatile applications of TA methods in the emerging field of polymer nanomaterial research, presenting some examples of applications of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) and thermal mechanical analysis (TMA) for the characterization of nanocomposite materials.
Keywords: nanocomposites; thermal analysis; DSC; TGA; TMA; DTA

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Cite This Article

MDPI and ACS Style

Corcione, C.E.; Frigione, M. Characterization of Nanocomposites by Thermal Analysis. Materials 2012, 5, 2960-2980.

AMA Style

Corcione CE, Frigione M. Characterization of Nanocomposites by Thermal Analysis. Materials. 2012; 5(12):2960-2980.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Corcione, Carola E.; Frigione, Mariaenrica. 2012. "Characterization of Nanocomposites by Thermal Analysis." Materials 5, no. 12: 2960-2980.

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