Enhanced performance of polyurethane foam with presence of silica nanoparticles

Polyurethane foam (PUF) has been widely used in wastewater treatment, and developing such foam with improved stability is highly desirable in industry. In this study, nanocomposite foam with silica nanoparticles was developed, aiming at enhancing the thermal, chemical, and biological stability of material. FT-IR, TEM and TGA techniques were employed to study the performance of nanocomposite foam. The results showed that when the SiO2 nanoparticles were modified by KH550 with an optimized molar ratio, the dispersion of these nanoparticles was enhanced significantly, and the developed nanocomposite foam showed much enhanced thermal stability and marginal weight loss in various chemicals. The nanocomposite foam with 3.0 wt% of nanoparticles exhibited the most significantly biochemical stability.