Moisture absorption by epoxy/montmorillonite nanocomposite

The peculiarities of moisture absorption of epoxy-nanoclay composite are estimated in the paper. Second Fick's law of diffusion was used to predict moisture diffusivity and equilibrium moisture content using accelerated analytical procedure. It was experimentally confirmed that sorption process in NC passes more slowly than in pure epoxy resin, for the highest filler content diffusivity reduces about half of diffusivity as for epoxy resin. The deviation from mixture rule was obtained for the equilibrium moisture content and the estimation of interphase content in composite was undertaken. It was determined that the higher content of interphase consistently leads to greater moisture absorption.