Electrostrictive polymer nanocomposites exhibiting tunable electrical properties

Abstract

This paper reports the discovery of an organoclay modified polymer nanocomposite exhibiting tunable electrical properties in connection with electrostrictive behavior. The reported nanocomposite is made of polyurethane and a small amount of nanosized montmorillonite (MMT) platelets with different gallery heights in the range 0–3.71 nm. They are extended with intercalated polymer molecules. It can be pointed out that the extended gallery heights of the polyurethane nanocomposite systems function as effective additives, which are composed of stacked MMT platelets in a parallel configuration serving as the electrodes and polyurethane serving as a polymer insert. Such a unique morphology results in controllable bulk properties of permittivity and ionic conductivity.