Electrical property-investigation of porous clay heterostructures derived from naturally-occurring clay minerals for smart packaging

Abstract

Porous Clay Heterostructure (PCH) is an interesting material to use as entrapping system such as ethylene scavenger, respected to its high surface area with uniform and specific pore size. PCHs have been prepared by the surfactant-directed assembly of mesostructured silica within the two-dimensional galleries of clays. Then, the PCH was synthesized within the galleries of Na-bentonite clay by the polymerization of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) in the presence of surfactant micelles. In addition, mesoporous clay with organic-inorganic hybrid (HPCH) is modified via co-condensation reaction of TEOS with candidate conductive functional groups (thiol group) and metal loading (silver), designated as MPPCH and Ag-PCH, to enhance surface conductivity of PCH material for using as sensor packaging. Subsequently, all modified PCHs were utilized as ethylene scavenger and blended with polypropylene for producing ethylene scavenging films in food packaging application with various ratios of clay. The morphological, structural, thermal, and mechanical properties were studied and reported in this work. In addition, the modified PCHs and polypropylene/modified PCHs nanocomposite films were also evaluated the potential uses in active packaging and sensor packaging.