2019 年 92 巻 1 号 p. 15-22
The author and coworkers have proposed a novel blending method for the fabrication of polymer nanocomposites, wherein inorganic nanoparticles without any complicated hydrophobic surface modifications were dispersed through the breakdown of loose agglomerates of their primary particles in each polymeric matrix component. In this article, using the silica/perfluoropolymer and silica/epoxy resin nanocomposites as examples, experimental techniques of the proposed method were explained with the scope of the pre-control of packing structure of spherical primary silica particles as loosely as possible to enable easy breaking down to nano-dispersion level at a blending stage with polymeric matrix components. The strategy for high dispersion of highly thermally conductive hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) fine particles having a plate-like shape with a high aspect ratio into epoxy resin was also described on the basis of the breakdown of the loose hybridized fillers having a card-house structure pre-formed via heterocoagulation of these h-BN and spherical silica nanoparticles. The experimental results of thermal conductivity of the nanocomposites loading h-BN without surface modifications fabricated by this method suggest that a dispersion of unmodified nanofillers into polymeric matrix might be a potential candidate for useful design criteria to develop innovative polymer nanocomposites superior to conventional ones loading modified nanofillers.
