Partic. vol. 30 pp. 118-128 (February 2017)
doi: 10.1016/j.partic.2016.04.002

Advanced microemulsion synthesis and characterization of wollastonite (CaSiO₃)/polystyrene one-dimensional nanorods with core–shell structures

Aniruddha Chatterjee^*, Prashant Khobragade, Satyendra Mishra^*, Jitendra Naik

aniruddha_chatterjee2006@yahoo.co.inprofsm@rediffmail.com

Abstract

In this work, one-dimensional core–shell nanorods (CSNRs; 185–250 nm wide and 1–1.5 μm long) consisting of triethoxyvinylsilane-modified wollastonite (CaSiO₃) nanorods (MWNRs) as a core and polystyrene as a shell with uniform size were successfully synthesized using an advanced microemulsion technique. The effect of varying the surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (producing CSNRs_CTAB) or sodium dodecyl sulphate (producing CSNRs_SDS) upon the size and morphology of the CSNRs was investigated by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). X-ray diffractometry and Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer revealed the existence of a strong interaction between the MWNRs and polystyrene, which implies that the polymer chains were successfully grafted onto the surface of the MWNRs. The CSNRs were blended with polypropylene by melt processing, and the effect of the CSNRs upon the morphological properties of the polypropylene matrix was investigated by FE-SEM and atomic force microscopy. It was observed that the polystyrene chains that grafted onto the CaSiO₃ nanorods interfered with the aggregation of CaSiO₃ nanorods in the polypropylene matrix and thus improved the compatibility of the CaSiO₃ nanorods with the polypropylene matrix. Furthermore, the compatibility of CaSiO₃ nanorods with polypropylene of CSNR_SDS/polypropylene was superior to that of CSNR_CTAB/polypropylene.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Core–shell structures; Atomized microemulsion; One-dimensional nanorods