Synthesis and characterization of polystyrene based nanocomposites

Abstract

Polystyrene, one of the most important material in the modern plastic industry and one of the major synthetic polymer in use today, offers an extremely broad range of applications, due to its good physical properties and low-cost. Significant change of mechanical, rheological, thermal, optical, fire retardancy and barrier properties of polystyrene has been obtained by its combination with different nanoparticles. Due to the extremely high interface area between nanoparticles and polystyrene, some new properties could also be generated, which are often necessary to provide in order to meet current and future demands for various significant applications in different fields. In this review, recent advances on nanocomposites based on polystyrene and different kinds of nanoparticles will be presented through the results obtained by authors of this chapter and results given in other literature reports. This chapter reviews the current understanding of polystyrene based nanocomposites with three particular topics: (i) the preparation conditions of nanoparticles for their efficient, homogeneous incorporation in polystyrene matrix, (ii) different approaches for the synthesis of nanocomposites based on polystyrene and (iii) the influence of the type, size and shape of incorporated nanoparticles on the properties of the polystyrene based nanocomposites. The potential applications of these nanocomposites are also highlighted.