Morphology of polyamide 6 confined into carbon nanotubes

The preparation of polymer nanocomposites filled with carbon nanotubes requires the nanotubes to be uniformly dispersed and compatible with the polymer matrix. In this work we report a preparation method of polyamide 6 (PA 6) based nanocomposite containing multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) without any additional surface modification and obtained by in situ polymerization, as a simple method for composites production. The process was assisted by ultrasounds prior to synthesis.With such a method, an interesting morphology of polyamide 6 confined into a multiwalled carbon nanotube as well as grafted on a carbon nanotube surface was observed. For comparative purpose, PA 6 nanocomposites were also prepared from commercially available master batch by melt compounding.