Abstract
This work reports the preparation of the polyamide 6 (PA6)/organically modified montmorillonite (O-MMT) composite nanofibres by a facile compounding and electrospinning. The O-MMT was firstly dispersed in N,N-dimethyl formamide and then compounded with PA6 which was dissolved in formic acid. The composite solution was electrospun to form PA6/O-MMT composite nanofibres. The structures and morphology of the composite nanofibres were characterised by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), x-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). It was found that the O-MMT layers were well exfoliated within the composite nanofibres and were oriented along the fibre direction. The homogeneous and cylindrical composite nanofibres showed decreased fibre diameters owing to the enhanced conductivity of the polymer solution. The results characterised by thermogravimetric analyses (TGAs) showed that the loading of O-MMT improved the thermal stability of the composite nanofibres.