The melt-direct intercalation method was employed to prepare poly (propylene)(PP)-maleic anhydride grafted poly(propylene) (PP-g-MAH)-organic-montmorillonite (Org-MMT) nanocomposites. X-ray diffractometry (XRD) was used to investigate the intercalation effect, crystallite size, and crystal cell parameter in these composites. Two kinds of maleated PP, with graft efficiencies of 0.6 and 0.9 wt%, and two sorts of manufacturing processes were used to prepare nanocomposites and then to investigate their effects on intercalation behavior. The results showed that the intercalation effect was enhanced by increasing the content of PP-g-MAH, using maleated PP with higher graft efficiency, and adopting the mold process. The crystallite size of nanocomposites perpendicular to the crystalline plane, such as (040), (130), (111), and (041), reached the minimum value when the content of PP-g-MAH was 20wt%. This result indicated that the crystallite size of PP in nanocomposites decreased by proper addition of PP-g-MAH. Maximum values in tensile strength (40.2 MPa) and impact strength (24.3 J/m) were achieved when the content of PP-g-MAH was 10 and 20%, respectively

Polyethylene (PE) was chemically modified with grafting maleic anhydride (MAH) monomer on its backbone at first. Then the melt-direct intercalation method was employed to prepare two kinds of nanocomposites, polyethylene (PE)/organic montmorillonite (Org-MMT) and maleic anhydride grafted polyethylene (PE-g-MAH)/Org-MMT nanocomposites. X-ray diffractometery (XRD) was used to investigate the intercalation effect and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to observe the dispersion of Org-MMT interlayers in matrixes. The results show that an intercalated structure would be acquired on mixing the PE and Org-MMT; and an almost exfoliated system would be obtained by mixing the PE-g-MAH and Org-MMT. Moreover, further measurements via thermogravimetric (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) showed that both of the nanocomposites had a higher thermal decomposition temperature and a higher crystallization temperature when compared to the original matrix. At the same time, the thermal and crystal properties for the PE-g-MAH prepared in this experiment are also discussed.