Citation:
Sophia Sachse, Francesco Silva, Huijun Zhu, Adeel Irfan, Agneska Leszczyńska, Krzysztof
Pielichowski, Valentina Ermini, Maria Blazquez, Oleksandr Kuzmenko and James Njuguna. The effect of nanoclay on dust generation during drilling process of polyamide 6
nanocomposites. Journal of Nanomaterials, 2012, Volume 2012, Article ID 189386
Abstract:
During the past decade, polymer nanocomposites have emerged as a novel and
rapidly developing class of materials and attracted considerable investment in
research and development worldwide. However, there is currently a lack of
information available in the literature on the nano and ultrafine particle
emission rates from these materials. In this study, influence of nanoclay on
mechanical drilling of PA6 composites, in terms of dust generation has been
reported. With the help of real-time characterization, submicrometer-sized
particles (5.6-512 nm) size distribution and number concentration emitted from
polyamide 6/nanoclay composites during mechanical drilling is studied. Total
particle concentration for the PA6/nanoclay composites was 20,000 cm-3, while
unreinforced panel measured a total concentration of approximately 400,000 cm-3.
While the airborne particle concentration for the PA6/ nanoclay composites was
20 times lower than for the PA6 matrix, the concentration of deposited
nanoparticles doubled for the nanocomposite. The results clearly shows that more
particles in the size range between 175-350 nm are generated, during drilling of
the nanocomposites and this particles deposit in a shorter time. It is likely
that the presence of nanoclay in some way retains the formation of high quantity
of airborne particles and promotes particle deposition.