Krishnamoorti, Ramanan2015-08-242015-08-24May 20132013-05http://hdl.handle.net/10657/1019Layered silicates are used for organic/inorganic hybrid fillers to reinforce the polymers. Dispersion of polymer and layered silicate is important because phase separation leads to weak interaction which makes poor property at polymer-layered silicate nanocomposites. In this work, PLA(Poly-lactic acid) is synthesized from cyclic L-lactide with layered silicates through in-situ ring opening reaction with varying concentrations of layered silicate. PLA is an attractive biomaterial and is used for packaging due to high strength and high-modulus properties. Its shortcomings such as barrier property, brittleness can be enhanced by mixing it with organic modified layered silicate. The polymer-layered silicate nanocomposites are characterized by x-ray diffraction, thermal gravimetric analysis and optical microscopy. In this work, intercalated or exfoliated polymer layered silicate nanocomposites could be achieved. The analysis of samples shows that crystallinity is decreased with increasing inorganic concentration. In addition, thermal stability and morphology also depend on dispersibility and inorganic concentration.application/pdfengThe author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).Polymer blendsPLAlayered silicateExfolitedIntercalationThermal stabilityMorphologyX-ray diffractionSonication2015-08-24Thesisborn digital