LAUSR

New polyamide/clay nanocomposites (PACN) were produced using semicrystalline polyamide (PA) containing thiazole ring and new organoclay (OC) through solution intercalation technique. For further study, PA/Cloisite-15A nanocomposites (PAAN) were also prepared using PA and Cloisite-15A. X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results showed a good dispersion for OC in the PA matrix. A meaningful decrease in intensity of absorption from ultraviolet–visible spectra as well as from fluorescence emissions of resulted PACN were observed. As thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) in nitrogen atmospheres showed, the T5 and T10 increased by about 57% and 36%, respectively for PACN containing 5 mass% of OC, as the char yield enhanced greatly, which was about 16.3% higher than the neat PA. Also the TGA results showed that PACN had higher thermal stability than PAAN. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis exhibited higher glass-transition temperature values (Tg) for PACN as compared to the neat PA. POLYM. COMPOS., 2017. © 2017 Society of Plastics Engineers