On fabrication and characteristics of injection molded ABS/Al2O3 nanocomposites

Nanocomposites of well-dispersed Al2O3 nanoparticles in acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) matrix were prepared via injection molding. Effects of the percentage of Al2O3 nanoparticles and injection molding process parameters on the mechanical and thermal properties of nanocomposites were studied. X-Ray powder diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that a homogeneous dispersion was achieved with 3% nanoparticles loading. Thermal analyses showed that the ABS/Al2O3 nanocomposites exhibited slightly enhanced degradation behavior when compared with neat ABS. Tensile tests and density measurements revealed that the specific strength and specific stiffness of ABS/Al2O3 nanocomposites were significantly superior to those of neat ABS. Impact tests showed that the addition of Al2O3 nanoparticles to an ABS matrix significantly decreased the impact strength of the nanocomposites. Analysis of variance demonstrated that the percentage of Al2O3 nanoparticles is the dominant variable affecting mechanical properties of ABS/Al2O3 nanocomposites. The effects of injection molding process parameters were statistically insignificant which imply more flexibility on selecting the injection molding processing conditions.