A comparative study of polyethylene oxide/nanoclay composite preparation via supercritical carbon dioxide and melt processing

The efficacy of supercritical carbon dioxide (ScCO₂) treatment compared with conventional melt processing methods in preparing nanoclay composites from poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) of varying molecular weight (400-10000) and a fluorinated ethoxide (EO) was studied. At low polymer loadings (∼20 wt∈% PEO), the results obtained using either method were broadly consistent for each molecular weight of PEO studied, although ScCO₂ processing yielded more homogenous samples. The ScCO₂ technique was found to be most effective when used with PEO of higher molecular weight (10000) or fluorinated EO, which is otherwise difficult to process using conventional techniques.