Effect of Pretreatment of Organo Layer Silicate with Surfactant Using Sonication to the Gallery of Silicate Layer for Biodegradable Nanocomposite Preparation

In biodegradable polymer nanocomposite, the important factors to determine its properties are polymer, biodegradable materials and nano filler. In case of nano filler of organo layer silicate (OLS) the interlayer gallery also plays an important role. This research is intended to study the effect of surfactants to the interlayer of OLS by sonication. Glycerol monostearate (GMS) and gum rosin (GR) were used to increase the OLS gallery or intercalation and the temperature stability as it provides an advantage for OLS to ease the exfoliation process. The relationship between OLS and surfactant was examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) to observe the dispersion of silicate and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) to identify the effect of surfactants. Thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) was carried out to prove that the previous surfactant is already substituted. It was found that pretreatment of OLS with sonication using GMS and GR improved the interlayer gallery, and the improvement is getting higher with the increasing of concentration. TGA analysis provides that the thermal stability of pretreatment OLS decomposed at 331 °C for GMS and 270 °C for GR where is higher than the initial OLS at 269 °C.