Summary
Sepiolite is a fibrous clay mineral with high surface area and surface silanol groups, making it an attractive reinforcement for polymer nanocomposites — but dispersing it uniformly is difficult. This study prepares and characterises electrospun poly(vinyl butyral) (PVB) nanocomposite fibres reinforced with sepiolite that has been functionalised and dispersed using ultrasonic irradiation, with amino silanes acting as coupling agents on the sepiolite surface. By adding the modified sepiolite directly into the PVB spinning solution, the authors avoid the fibre aggregation that usually limits such systems, and they study how processing conditions govern the uniformity, morphology and structure of the resulting patterned nanofibrous mats. Incorporating sepiolite alters the thermo-mechanical behaviour of the mats. The PVB/sepiolite system is presented as a novel material with potential in antiballistic protection, biomedical scaffolds and sorbents for water purification.