A strategy for significant improvement of strength of semi-crystalline polymers with the aid of nanoparticles

With the addition of 1 wt% nanosilica, oriented polypropylene (PP) shows ultra-high tensile strength at break (≈ 320 MPa, stronger than unidirectional glass fiber (∼60 wt%)/PP composites and a low-carbon steel) through solid-state drawing strategy. When nano-SiO2 is present in the drawn PP, the aligned macromolecular chains in amorphous regions can be tied by the well distributed nanofillers to share the stress together. Above the critical...