Tennis core strings of polyamide-6 modified by surface-capped nano-silica

▸ The method to produce nylon6/silica composites is melt-extrusion process. ▸ Using the interactions of silica/polyamide to increase strength and elasticity. ▸ Epoxy groups decreased the aggregation and improved compatibility of the composites. ▸ Tennis core string in the study had a higher breaking stress and larger elastic ratio. A new method that modified silica nanoparticles were infused into PA6 is to produce tennis core string through a melt-extrusion process. The idea was to produce a highly strong and elastic tennis core string of PA6, utilizing the interactions between modified silica and polymer. The effects of surface-capped nano-silica on the strength and elongation of tennis core string were studied. It has been observed that with the infusion of silica nanoparticles modified by γ-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPS), the stress at breaking and E-modulus of tennis core string is enhanced by 46.24% and 15.17% comparing with neat PA6 with changeless elongation at breaking at a critical concentration. The source of this improvement has been traced to the produced strong covalent bond and hydrogen bond between epoxy groups and–COOH and–NH2 in polyamide. Besides, compared with kinds of others strings of previous research results, tennis core string added nano-silica modified by γ-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPS) has a strength at breaking at 352.43MPa exceeding the natural gut string, the polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), Monofil string and integrated nylon string by 42.05%, 4.49% and 9.38%, respectively. Meanwhile, tennis core string of polyamide modified by surface-capped nanosilica (PGMNS) has a higher elastic ratio at 0.15 than the other four strings.