Objective of this work was to test the thermal and mechanical properties of POSS coated SiC particles infused in epoxy polymers to produce nanocomposite. A non-contact and sonochemical method was developed to coat POSS on SiC nanoparticles and uniformly disperse in a polymer. These epoxy based polymers were further cured to prepared polymer nanocomposites.
Nanocomposites with 1% loading of both SiC and POSS coated SiC are shown in figure. The flexural strength was increased by 12% and 14.3% over the neat epoxy. The flexural modulus were also increased by 9.5% and 12.5% respectively with no loss in strain to failure. It should be noted here that with reducing the amount of SiC by 50% in coated nanoparticles, still it is possible to increase the mechanical and thermal properties.