Crystallization and thermal properties of polyamide 6 composites filled with different nanofillers

The aim of this research is mainly to study the melting and crystallization behavior of polyamide 6 (PA6) when interacting with different nanofillers. The results show that the addition of nanofillers causes the increase of the peak temperature (Tp) during crystallization, which can be explained by the nucleation effect of the nanofiller. For PA6 and nanocomposites, the α crystal is the dominant crystalline phase. However, the γ form crystal appeared in PA6 containing montmorillonite (MMT) and SiO2, while the crystallization did not appear in the composites with carbon nanotube (CNTs). For the PA6/CNTs nanocomposites, the length and surface properties of CNTs also had an effect on the crystallization of PA6. Although there are more –COOH groups on the surface of CNTs1#, the crystallization degree of PA6/CNTs1# is the lowest. The area of the melting peak of CNTs3# is relatively large for a shorter size. The crystal-particle distribution is also varied for different dimensions of CNTs treated using three methods and the width of the melting peak of PA6/CNTs3# is the largest.