Structure and dynamics in PEO nanocomposites

In this work, the effect of confinement on the local, the segmental and the ionic processes of poly(ethyleneoxide)/montmorillonite (PEO/MMT) intercalates is investigated. X-ray diffraction and DSC data show that the intercalated PEO chains remain amorphous and it is only the excess PEO chains outside the galleries that crystallize. This is also evident in the behavior of the elastic intensity of quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS) experiments on the same hybrids. Dielectric relaxation spectroscopy reveals that confinement results in an acceleration of the PEO segmental dynamics that display an Arrhenius temperature dependence with low activation energy, whereas the local beta-process remains unaffected.