What is Nanocomposites?

 

Nanocomposites

Composite materials are considered the most important materials in the modern technology. Composites may consist of multiple components or at least two components in which one of the component acts as  a continuous matrix phase and the other one as an un-continuous reinforcement material and the combination provides the best characteristics of both component . Generally, there are three basic classes of composites which based on the size of the reinforcement material in the Composites. These are nanocomposites, micro composites, and macro composites. Among these there three types nanocomposites have the most prominent characteristics, and these materials can prepare by applying the reinforcement less than 100 nm in size in the composites. High surface-to-volume ratio in the nanocomposites plays a vital role for the creation of strong interaction between reinforcement and matrix. Although there is a short history of nanocomposites, but these materials have become most frequently used in numerous applications due to their excellent properties. Recently nanocomposites have been developed their considerable applications many fields such as rubber, plastics, engineering, electronics, optics, coatings and adhesives materials etc.

History of nanocomposites

Composites materials are the class of material having at least two or more than two different components with considerable distinct mechanical chemical and physical features. In old ages mud and grass stems based reinforced adobes were used as construction materials by ancient people then the continuous development was made by humankind till the last century a great   breakthrough has been achieved in the form of nanocomposites. It is the very last century in which the studies on the modern composites and mass production of these materials have been reported. Shortly after the idea of these modern composite materials has been applied to many fields.

According to reported studies on nanocomposites it has been established that there is a nearly 50 years history of nanocomposites, but few references address the importance of how the organoclay is processed into the plastic of choice. In 1950s, the first reference has been given on nanocomposites, and the first report on the polyamide nanocomposites were given as early as 1976. The Toyota researchers was the first who began a detailed examination on these composite materials after that they have been more widely studied in both industrial and academic laboratories.

Definition of nanocomposites

The broader definition of nanocomposites has remarkably surrounded a large variety of materials which may be one dimensional, two dimensional, three dimensional and amorphous materials, made up by distinct dissimilar constituents at the nanometer scale. According to Azonano (2009) nanocomposites are “materials with a nanoscale structure that improve the macroscopic properties of products.” Typically, he observed that, nanocomposites are polymer, clay or carbon, or may be the building blocks of combination of these materials with nanoparticle.

Why nanocomposites?

Nanocomposites are the composite materials which consist of at least one component has size in range of nanometer scale such as nanotubes, nanoparticles or lamellar nanostructure. Since they are multiphasic materials so dimensions of one of the phases must be in the range of 10nm to 100 nm. Now a days, nanocomposites have become the best beneficial alternatives to replace different engineering materials that have many limitations. Nanotechnology has become a rapidly expanding field in which different innovative synthetic approaches has been developed, so by using these approaches, it has been possible to synthesize various new modern materials with excellent features. The found characteristics of the nanocomposites not only depended on the characteristics of the constituent materials, but also typically on their morphological and interfacial properties. But it is not always true because sometimes it is also happened that the properties of the parent constituent materials are completely disappeared by newly formed unknown properties in the material. Hence, the main notion behind nanocomposites is to create and design novel materials made of nanostructured building blocks with enhanced flexibility and improved physical and chemical properties.

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