ENHANCING THE PERMITTIVITY, PERMEABILITY AND MORPHOLOGY OF ZNO-PCL NANOCOMPOSITES VIA NANO INCLUSION TREATMENT

Abstract

This study involves an investigation to ascertain the effect of ZnO nano inclusion on the evolution and dielectric properties of ZnO-PCL nanocomposites. The effect of the nano inclusion towards attenuation of the composites is also reported. In this study, ZnO nano particles and polycaprolactone (PCL) were blended to form composites using melt blending technique. The composites were employed to study the effect of nano inclusion on the materials. Further analysis was done using FTIR to investigate the band positions and absorption peak of the prepared samples, SEM and EDX for the morphology and elemental composition of samples. The FTIR spectra indicated a strong interaction at the interface of the ZnO nano particles with the polymer matrix. Amongst other findings, it was confirmed that the dielectric constant increases as the ZnO nano content increases where the average values for the different compositions are 4.39, 4.14, 3.62, 3.31 and 3.21 from highest to lowest filler percentage respectively. The high dielectric properties of the composites makes it suitable for small microwave absorption devices