The morphology and structure of natural clays from Yangtze River and their interactions with polyurethane elastomer

In thermoplastic polyurethane elastomer (PUE) technology, the necessity for revealing the interactions between clays and polyurethane chains is improving recently. In this paper, three different natural clays (NC) were firstly employed to prepare NC/PUE composites to explore the relation between fillers and PUE chains. We found that the natural clays were formed from sand to fertile soil, and then corroded deeply to CaCO3 (rock) by surroundings, including water, wind and temperature and so on. Then, the neat PUE and NC/PUE composites were characterized by SEM, TEM, XRD, SAXS, FTIR and DSC to investigate the function of natural clays in polyurethane chains. We found that the different clays particles interacted with PUE chains in different ways. The lamellae and stacks of rock aggregated mainly in PUE matrix and interact with the hard/soft domains, while that of sand and soil aggregates mainly on the surface of PUE matrix.