The Mechanisms of Growth and the Structure of 2D-Nanofiller Clusters in Polymer Media

Abstract

The estimations made within the fractal analysis have shown that 2D-nanofiller sheets in polymer medium form clusters (tactoids) that are fractal objects. This conclusion is confirmed by means of the irreversible aggregation model. The major factor determining the dimension of these clusters is the dimension of the random walk of initial nanoparticles. The structure of the 2D-nanofiller tactoids definitely determines the elastic modulus of the nanocomposite at the fixed nanofiller content.