Research Article

Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology

Volume 7: 1–9
ª The Author(s) 2017
Thermal and mechanical performance DOI: 10.1177/1847980416684117
journals.sagepub.com/home/nax
of rigid polyurethane foam added with
commercial nanoparticles

Caterina Lorusso1, Viviana Vergaro2,3, Francesca Conciauro3,

Giuseppe Ciccarella2,3 and Paolo Maria Congedo1

Abstract
This study investigates the effects of commercial nanoparticles on thermal and mechanical performance of rigid poly-
urethane foams. Two different types of nanoparticles are considered as fillers, spherical titania and rod-shaped halloysite
clay nanotubes. The aim of this study was to produce rigid polyurethane foams modified with titania nanocrystals and
nanohalloysite in order to obtain polyurethanes with improved properties. The laboratory scale-up will be suitable for the
production in many branches of industry, such as construction and automotive production. In particular, these foams,
added with commercial nanoparticles, characterized by better thermal and mechanical properties, are mainly used in
construction for thermal insulation of buildings. The fillers were dispersed in the components, bringing rates up to 10%. In
these investigations, the improvement of the thermal properties occurs by adding nanoparticles in the range 4–8% of
titania and halloysite. The mechanical properties instead have been observed an improvement starting from 6% of
nanoparticles addition. All data are in agreement with scanning electron microscope observations that shown a decrease
in the average cell size and an increase in the cell density by adding nanoparticles in foams.

Keywords
TiO2, P25, nanohalloysite, polyurethane, mechanical properties, thermal properties, commercial nanoparticles, foam
optimized, cell morphology, nanodispersion

Date received: 04 May 2016; accepted: 22 November 2016

Topic: Nanoparticles
Topic Editor: Raphael Schneider

Introduction of thermal insulating properties, a reduction of the

thermal aging phenomena and an enhancement of the
The foams optimized with nanoparticles exhibit increased
mechanical properties.1–10
strength and damping properties over traditional foams.1–10
Foams added with nanoparticles are defined as composites
with a polymer matrix and fillers that are less than 100 nm 1
in at least one dimension. The nanoparticles offer a conveni- Department of Engineering for Innovation, University of Salento, Lecce,
Italy
ent opportunity in the formation of polymer foams for several 2
Biological and Environmental Sciences Department, University of
key reasons2: to function as heterogeneous nucleation sites; Salento, Lecce, Italy
3
to provide conductivity or mechanical strength of the foam CNR NANOTEC – Institute of Nanotechnology c/o Campus Ecotekne,
while not decreasing other properties; to change the rheolo- University of Salento, Lecce, Italy
gical properties; to reduce the energy for bubble nucleation;
Corresponding Authors:
and to change the structure and density of the foam. Caterina Lorusso and Paolo Maria Congedo, Department of Engineering
Therefore, the use of nanoparticles may lead to a sen- for Innovation, University of Salento, via Monteroni, Lecce I-73100, Italy.
sible variation of foam morphology, with an enhancement Emails: [email protected]; [email protected]

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open-access-at-sage).
2 Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology

Standard polyurethane (PU) foams have some limita- Table 1. Foam formulations and densities.12
tions, such as low mechanical strength and low thermal
Formulation Sample
stability.1,2 The properties of PU depend not only on the
intrinsic properties of the raw materials but also on the Voranate M 600 (g) 165
foam morphology, such as cell density, cell size and size Varanol RH360 (g) 90
distribution. Therefore, one of the most important aspects CP 260 (g) 10
Polycat 5 (g) 0.15
of PU research is to enhance the strength of the foam
Polycat 8 (g) 2.7
without compromising its lightweight. There are two Tegostab B 8496 (g) 2.5
approaches to solve this issue. The first one is to decrease Water (g) 2.4
the average cell size without decreasing the foam density, Cyclopentane (g) 9
meant as the final bulk density of the product. The second Density (g/l) 36.1
approach is to use fillers to reinforce the polymer matrix.
A special interest is addressed in the use of nanofillers to
decrease cell size and at the same time to reinforce the Italy) and the isocyanate (Voranate M 600, Dow Chemical
polymeric matrix. Company, Italy). In the foam formulation, a primary
In very recent works,11–13 materials for the building polyol and a secondary polyol were used. The character-
containing synthesized nanoparticles have been tested in istic of the primary polyol (Varanol RH 360, Dow Chem-
the laboratory, and the improved properties were attributed ical Company, Carpi, Correggio, Italy) is of having many
to surface treatments of nanofillers. In this work, some hydroxyl groups, while the secondary polyol (CP 260,
commercial nanoparticles have been employed in building Dow Chemical Company, Carpi, Correggio, Italy) pro-
sites due to their low cost, instead of those synthesized in motes the reaction. The contribution of CP 260 must
the laboratory. The originality of this work is due to the remain low, because it causes an opening of the cells. The
choice of the nanoparticles. The titania (TiO2) has been isocyanate is very reactive towards components that have
used for its particular property of absorbing the solar radia- active hydrogen (polyols). As regards the preparation of
tion. In this way, the TiO2 becomes reactive and allows rigid foams, it has been considered appropriate to use an
oxygen to react with the organic substances dangerous for oligomeric diphenylmethane diisocyanate. The kinetics of
humans, transforming them into the anhydrite carbon diox- polymerization have been favoured adding the catalysts
ide and water. Since the shape of the TiO2 is spherical, it supplied with Air Product (Polycat 5 and Polycat 8, Dow
has been decided to put it in comparison with a commercial Chemical Company, Italy). Among the physical foaming
elongated nanoparticle such as halloysite. Halloysite clay agents, cyclopentane has been chosen (provided by Sigma
nanotubes (HNTs) have two dimensions at the nanometric Aldrich, Milan, Italy) for its good solubility in the poly-
scale while the third is larger, these particles possess an mer matrix and low thermal conductivity. These charac-
elongated structure. TiO2 nanoparticles have all three teristics led to the production of the PU with good
dimensions at the nanometric scale. insulation and physical properties.
This choice has been due to the previous work12 in To improve the stability and the cellular regulation, the
which the behaviour of elongated nanoparticles is better polyol mixture has been added to a silicon reagent (copo-
than the spherical shape ones, but this effect is still under lymer polyester–polysiloxane) provided by Evonik: Tegos-
investigation. tab B 8474.
Cell size, size distribution and cell density depend on The particles introduced are commercial purified dehy-
the cell nucleation and cell growth mechanisms, all of drated HNTs, obtained from Applied Minerals, Inc. (New
which contribute to the final bulk density of the product. York City, New York, USA), and Aeroxide TiO2 (P25)
The cell size is inversely proportional to the number of nanocrystals chosen for its characteristic of being inexpen-
nucleation sites, and the percentage of nanofillers can sive and non-toxic.27 P25 nanocrystals are a commercial
increase the nucleation rate14–26; for this reason, in this product made by pyrolysis and consist of 80% of anatase
work, we have used the percentage of filler up to 10%. An crystal phase and 20% of rutile.
improvement of thermal and mechanical properties has Foam formulations and densities are reported in Table 1.
been reached, and these results have been compared with
morphological analyses performed with scanning electron
microscopy (SEM). Foam preparation
The rectangular panels have been realized through the
foaming in batch and are accomplished by pouring the
Materials and methods reaction mixture into a plastic mould of size 400  400
 40 mm (Figure 1). The mould is coated with an alumi-
Raw materials nium sheet of thickness 1 mm, to avoid the reaction
The main components for a PU foam are as follows: poly- between the plastic mould and the reagents of the reaction
ols (Varanol RH 360, CP 260, Dow Chemical Company, mixture.
Lorusso et al. 3

where g is the weight in grams. The grams of isocyanate are

g NCO ¼ n eq  W eq;NCO (6)
As already mentioned, the isocyanate groups react by
following a unitary relationship with the hydroxyl groups.
Therefore, it is better expressed using equation (4) in terms
of the equivalent of hydroxyl. It refers to a weight of 100 g
and employing equation (4), equation (6) becomes
100 g OH 42
g NCO ¼  (7)
W eq;OH %NCO
Using equation (4), we obtain
n
g NCO ¼ OH  7:5 (8)
NCO
Operating with a mixture of polyols with different
hydroxyl numbers and considering the chemical agent
water, the n OH of equation (8) is the weighted average of
all hydroxyl numbers, and for this, equation (8) becomes
g g pol2 g H2 O 
Figure 1. Mould for foaming. g NCO ¼
pol1
 n OH 1 þ  n OH 2 þ    þ  n OH H 2 O (9)
100 100 100
7:5

%NCO
The mould is designed to resist to an internal pressure of
2–3 bar; there are three holes to allow the evacuation of the Equation (9) is used to calculate the grams of isocya-
gases, produced during the foaming. The nanoparticles nate. In this equation, not only the hydroxyl groups are
have been dispersed using an UltraTurrax DI 18 Basic, with taken into account but also all the polyols put in the mix-
speed 23,000 r/min for 1 h. This period has been needed to ture, including water –OH, where n OH H 2 O is 6220 mg
not overheat the mixture and to have a good dispersion of KOH/g. The real quantity of isocyanate used differs from
the nanoparticles. In the preparation of PU, the amount of the stoichiometric one: It generally needs a greater quantity
each reagent must meet strict stoichiometric ratios. After to ensure the complete reaction of polyols. The quantity
having established the grams of polyols (100 g), to deter- that really is used is expressed by the following relationship
mine the right amount of isocyanate to use, it is necessary
real quantity of isocyanate
to ensure that the isocyanate groups –NCO react only with I¼  100 (10)
a hydroxyl group –OH. The number of hydroxyl nOH is28 stoichiometric quantity of isocyanate
56; 100  f Practically, this index has been set equal to 1.1 O 1.3; in
n OH ¼ (1)
MW fact, if a greater index had been used, what would result is
an excess of reactive isocyanate with a consequent worsen-
where f is the functionality and MW is the molecular weight.
ing of the mechanical properties.
The equivalent weight in gram per mole is defined by
For the amount of blowing agent used, it is necessary to
MW apply an appropriate equation. It is known that putting an
W eq ¼ (2)
f excessive amount of blowing agent compared to the theo-
Replacing equation (1) in (2), the equivalent weight of retical value obtained, it will have negative consequences
the hydroxyl groups is obtained on the structure of the foam that will be less thick and very
porous with disastrous results both on the mechanical prop-
56; 100 erties and on the thermal conductivity. In fact, minimum
W eq;OH ¼ (3)
n OH values of conductivity are obtained for a density ranging
Similarly, the equivalent weight of the isocyanate between 30 and 40 kg/m3; if they differ from these values,
groups can be obtained the conductivity increases.
The mass of blowing agent (cyclopentane and water) to
42
W eq; NCO ¼ (4) add has been calculated in this way28
%NCO
m tot m PU þ m BA
where % NCO is the concentration of the –NCO group ρ¼ ¼   (11)
reactive in the isocyanate compared to the weight. The V m BA mH2 O T
V0 þ 
number of equivalent ðn eq Þ can be defined by WM BA WM H 2 O T0

g where mPU is the mass PU, while mBA is the mass of blow-
n eq ¼ (5)
W eq ing agent. The volume V can be approximated to that of the
4 Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology

expanding gas, because the foam is made to 97% by gas. a flat surface in each of the two halves, which has been
Usually, the value assigned to the ratio T =T 0 is included in obtained from the band saw, and has been thermostated for
the range 1.3 O 1.6. 24 h at 23 C. During the measure, the temperature follows
The WM H 2 O is 18 kg/m3, while the WM BA is 150 a transitory with an increase of around 0.5 C above the
kg/m3. The mass of blowing agent is obtained by the fol- temperature environment.
lowing equation
  Physical–mechanical properties
m
m  V0  T  H 2 O  ρ
T0 WM H 2 O The tests have been made on specimens of prismatic side
m BA ¼ V0 T (12)
 ρ1 with square base, with a nominal thickness of 25 mm and a
WM BA T0 relative error within 0.5%, according to the UNI EN 826,32
It has been noticed that although equation (12) has been due to the cut of the band saw, with which the tests have
applied and then employed the precise amount of blowing been cut. The width of the specimens must not be less than
agent, the density result was not coincident to the real. their thickness in order not to reduce the accuracy of the
It is very important to calculate the amount of foaming result. It has been applied a load of 250 Pa and press the
agents, particularly water, because the residual water sample at a constant crosshead speed with a servo-
makes even more difficult to control the density of the final hydraulic TECNOTEST testing system. The machine for
material. This probably depends on the interactions that the compression test provided two parallel smooth plates of
different types of nanoparticles have with water. steel, having at least the diameter equal to the side of the
specimen under test. One of the plates has been fixed, but
having the possibility to move with a constant speed, while
Morphological analysis the other is movable, consisting of a ball joint positioned
The morphology of the foams has been studied by means of centrally, so as to ensure that the specimen is subjected
SEM (Carl Zeiss Merlin, Jena, Germany). The material has exclusively an axial force. The machine consists of a device
been cut with a razor blade, and the fracture surface was for the measurement of the displacement and a sensor fixed
sputter-coated with gold before observation; the accelerat- to one of the plates to measure the force produced by the
ing voltage is set at 5 kV to avoid degradation of the sam- reaction of the specimen on the plates. For PUs when the
ple. The morphological characterization has been used to stress maximum corresponds to a deformation lower than
study the filler dispersion and the mean cell size. The cell 10%, it is defined ‘compressive strength’.
density (Nf) was calculated according to equation (13) and The specimens have been conditioned for at least 6 h
then normalized to the ratio between the nanocomposite at 23 (+ 5) C, and the test has been conducted at 23
foam density and the neat PU foam cells19–21 (+ 5) C. The placing of the specimens occurs between
 2 3=2 the parallel plates of the machine for the compression
nM test; it is very important that the base of the specimen is
Nf ¼ (13)
A normal to the direction of compression and that has been
applied a preload of 250 (+ 10) Pa. The specimen was
where n is the number of cells, A is the area in a SEM
compressed with the mobile plate set at a constant speed
micrograph and M is the magnification factor.
of 2.5 mm/min, and the test continued until reaching a
deformation of 10%.
Thermal conductivity measurements
Thermal conductivity measurements of PUs are obtained
using a transient technique called hot disc experiment. The Results and discussion
Hot Disk Thermal Constants Analyzer (Göteborg, Sweden)
is a system designed to measure the thermal transport prop-
Morphological characterization
erties of a sample: thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity When a filler is introduced into a polymeric material, the
and specific heat. The system is based on a patented tran- ideal is to have a regular granulometry and that its particles
sient plane source technique that follows DIN EN ISO are sufficiently small to enable better distribution in the
22007-2; it can be used to study materials with thermal matrix. Figure 2 presents the image obtained with transmis-
conductivities from 0.005 W/m K to 500 W/m K and cov- sion electron microscopy of commercial TiO2 Aeroxide
ering a temperature range from 30 K to 1000 K. The repro- P25 and SEM of commercial HNTs.
ducibility of the instrument is typically better than 1%, and Nanoparticles act as nucleation agents and promote
the accuracy is better than 5%. The measurements have the cell nucleation because of an effective decrease in the
been carried out according to UNI EN 1316529, and the required energy for creating bubbles. According to the
analysis procedure of the Hot Disk was reported in the ‘classical’ theory of homogeneous nucleation, the forma-
following documents.30,31 The predefined shape of the tion of a gas bubble in a liquid mass is associated with a
sample is not important; it is essential that the sample has change in Gibbs free energy. The free energy expression of
Lorusso et al. 5

Figure 2. (a) TEM image of TiO2 Aeroxide P25. (b) SEM image of HNTs. TEM: transmission electron microscopy; SEM: scanning
electron microscopy; HNTs: halloysite clay nanotubes; TiO2: titania.

Gibbs has a maximum point in correspondence with the

critical radius Rc value. For values of radius less than Rc,
the bubbles formed tend to dissolve again into the liquid.
Their growth, in fact, is thermodynamically a disadvantage,
since it requires an increase in free energy. For higher
values of radius Rc, the bubble tends to grow, because this
growth corresponds to a decrease in free energy.
Any solid element introduced into the mixture, such as
nanoparticles, tends to decrease the value of DG and thus
promote the nucleation. When the nucleation occurs near
the interface with a third phase, generally solid, it is called
heterogeneous nucleation.
The energy barrier for the heterogeneous nucleation is
much reduced compared to the homogeneous one; in Figure 3. Cell size (mm) of polyurethane foam additivated with
TiO2 P25 nanoparticles. TiO2: titania.
particular, the higher the solid–liquid surface tension and
the lower the bubble–solid surface tension, the more it
decreases. In this study, there has been a higher nucleation
in the case of halloysite, carrying out an improved thermal
conductivity, due to the higher solid–liquid surface tension.
Nanoparticles in comparison with conventional nucle-
ating agents have a very extensive surface contact with
the polymer matrix and very high surface density. Com-
pared to conventional micron-sized filler particles used in
the foaming processes, nanoparticles offer unique advan-
tages for enhanced nucleation. The improved nucleation
efficiency is reported in many studies for different poly-
mer/nanoparticle systems at very low particle content
rations.4,17,33–42
The extremely fine dimensions and large surface area of
nanoparticles provide a more intimate contact between the Figure 4. Cell size (mm) of polyurethane foam additivated with
HNTs nanoparticles. HNTs: halloysite clay nanotubes.
particles, polymer matrix and gas. Probably, the rod shape
of halloysite, compared to the spherical shape of TiO2,
constitutes a major impediment in the mixture of the liquid The morphology of nanocomposite foams was evaluated
that will generate the PU foam. As it has been mentioned by SEM ( AIS-2100, Seron Technology, Korea). The foam
earlier, every obstacle it contributes lowers the Gibbs free mean cell size (Figures 3 and 4) has been measured by
energy by promoting the nucleation, thereby increasing the ImageJ (autocad autodesk) software, and the values have
insulating properties. been obtained as an average of minimum 200 cells; the cell
Furthermore, a significantly higher effective particle density (Table 1) was calculated from SEM micrographs.
concentration can be achieved at a low nominal particle By analysing foams morphology in detail, it has been
concentration. shown that the filler dispersion has been always fairly
6 Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology

Table 2. Wall thickness (nm) and density (Nf) (cells/cm3) of pure

foam (neat) and nanoreinforced foams with TiO2 P25 and HNTs.

Wall thickness (nm) Cell density (Nf)

Type (mean + SD) (mean + SD)
Neat PU foam 395 + 6.22 5.00 + 0.36
TiO2 2% 401.2 + 5.3 4.97 + 0.43
TiO2 4% 410.0 + 2.5 5.13 + 0.60
TiO2 6% 430.3 + 4.4 5.15 + 0.64
TiO2 8% 450.4 + 1.5 5.18 + 0.69
TiO2 10% 371.3 + 9.7 5.07 + 0.82
HNTs 2% 402.1 + 5.2 5.05 + 0.43
HNTs 4% 412.7 + 4.7 5.18 + 0.60
HNTs 6% 416.4 + 7.4 5.22 + 0.64
HNTs 8% 491.5 + 4.1 5.26 + 0.70
HNTs 10% 343.1 + 7.8 5.36 + 0.82
HNTs: halloysite clay nanotubes; TiO2: titania.

good: No agglomeration of great dimensions can be

found.
All foams exhibit polygons closed-cell structures with
energetically stable pentagonal and hexagonal faces. The
neat PU foam has fewer cells and a larger cell size than PU
nanocomposite foams. From SEM images, the cell size,
wall thickness and density were measured and summarized
in Table 2. From the figure, it can be seen that the cell size
is different for the pure PU foam and the nanoreinforced
foam. PU foams containing nanoparticles have a higher cell
density Nc and smaller cell size d, suggesting that the dis-
persed nanoparticles act as heterogeneous nucleation sites
during cell formation. With the addition of nanoparticles,
the overall cell structure has become less uniform, the cell
walls have become thicker, and there is a larger amount of
broken cells, above all in the samples prepared adding 10%
of nanoparticles, in which, also, a decrease in cell walls has
been observed.
Alterations in the cell morphology are due to the pres-
ence of nanoparticles that affect the process of cell
nucleation. Figure 5. (a) Neat foam; nanoreinforced polyurethane foams:
In general, a decrease in the cell size of the foam con- (b, c) P25–HNTs 2%; (d, e) P25–HNTs 4%; (f, g) P25–HNTs 6%;
taining nanoparticles is due to nanoparticles serving as (h, i) P25–HNTs 8%; (j, k) P25–HNTs 10%. Scale bar 200 mm.
HNTs: halloysite clay nanotubes.
nucleation points, resulting in the formation of a larger
number of cells and, hence, a smaller cell size. Thus, the
key issues in decreasing the cell size and increasing the cell probably, because the nanoparticles have been badly
density are addition of small amounts of nanoparticles and dispersed in the mixture generating a conductivity value
their uniform dispersion within the matrix material. unstable.
Figure 5 shows SEM images of the fractured surface of This is due to two factors: the first one is that the
PU foams. agglomerates arranged on the wall (Table 2) rather than
at the nodes of the cell and the second one is the presence
of many broken cells.
Thermal conductivity PU foams additivated with HNTs after 3 days from the
The results on thermal conductivity of the neat, TiO2 production, the conductivity value continues to decrease
and HNTs nanoadditivated PUs are summarized in Table gradually with increasing percentage of nanoparticles
3. The TiO2 additived foams show the same trend of the until 8%.
conductivity value 3 and 10 days after production. The For both foam compositions, when the nanoparticles
data of thermal conductivity are worsening up 6%, concentration reaches 10%, detrimental effects in terms
Lorusso et al. 7

Table 3. Thermal conductivity – HNTs and TiO2.

Thermal conductivity Thermal conductivity

(W/m K) (W/m K)
3 days after 10 days after
Type (mean value + SD) (mean value + SD)
Neat PU foam 0.0254 + 0.0006 0.0262 + 0.0003
TiO2 2% 0.0246 + 0.0003 0.0249 + 0.0003
TiO2 4% 0.0244 + 0.0007 0.0261 + 0.0006
TiO2 6% 0.0292 + 0.0015 0.0342 + 0.0003
TiO2 8% 0.0254 + 0.0001 0.0262 + 0.0005
TiO2 10% 0.0329 + 0.0007 0.0343 + 0.0003
HNTs 2% 0.0263 + 0.0018 0.0263 + 0.0003
HNTs 4% 0.0242 + 0.0004 0.0309 + 0.0008
HNTs 6% 0.0239 + 0.0001 0.0262 + 0.0002
HNTs 8% 0.0236 + 0.0001 0.0262 + 0.0005
HNTs 10% 0.0245 + 0.0009 0.0343 + 0.0003 Figure 7. Compression stress–strain plot HNTs. HNTs: halloysite
clay nanotubes.
HNTs: halloysite clay nanotubes; TiO2: titania.

cell bending and collapse. Thus, it can be said that the

behaviour of the PU foam can be improved due to infusion
of nanoparticles.
In Figure 7, the curve of the neat foam has a trend
similar to the additivated foams with 6, 8 and 10%, while
the foams, added in 2 and 4%, suffer strong deformations
with applications of small loads, so these foams are not able
to be used in zones of the buildings designed to trampling.
The results of compression tests show that infusion of
HNTs gives more strength to the cells.

Conclusions
The nanoreinforced PU foams manufactured with two dif-
ferent types of nanoparticles, TiO2 (Aeroxide P25) and
HNTs, have been dispersed into the PU matrix through
sonication technique. Both neat and nanophased foams are
Figure 6. Compression stress–strain plot TiO2. TiO2: titania. tested in compression and thermal analysis. The micro-
structure has been investigated by the SEM. It is observed
of conductivity happened. The addition of nanoparticles, that PU/TiO2 shows the highest performance for mechan-
above 8%, leads to the formation of some bigger and some ical properties, because of the infusion of TiO2, which gives
broken that deprives the foam of its insulating properties. more strength to the cells. Probably, as the nanoparticles
are arranged on the walls of the cells, it generates an
increase in the wall thickness that confers a higher mechan-
Physical–mechanical testing ical resistance. PU/HNTs shows, instead, the highest per-
Compressive stress–strain curves for the neat and nano- formance for thermal properties in terms of thermal
phased PU foams are shown in Figures 6 and 7. conductivity immediately after production, showing a con-
The curves show three stages of deformation: initial tinuous decrease in the conductivity values in inverse pro-
linear behaviour, linear plateau region and densification. portion to the addition of nanoparticles up to 8%. As
The initial slope is used to calculate the compressive mod- reported in the literature, the improvement of thermal and
ulus of foam, and the intersection point between the initial mechanical properties has been obtained using elongated
slope and the plateau slope is used to calculate the com- nanoparticles, such as clays or carbon nanotubes.5 For this
pressive strength. In Figure 6, it is observed that the com- reason, it has been decided to compare halloysite with
pressive modulus and strength are higher, of foams added spherical nanoparticles (TiO2) for testing if rising the per-
with 6, 8 and 10% of TiO2, than the neat. For low disper- centage (up to 10%) of fillers confers an enhancement of
sions, 2–4%, TiO2 PU foam shows lower values than the foam properties. The results show that despite the high
neat. Moreover, the low slope depends and the shape of the percentage of fillers, the behaviour of elongated nanopar-
plateau region depends on the morphology of cells. In case ticles is better than the spherical ones. Probably, the elon-
of linear plateau, cell deformation occurs as combination of gated shape of the nanoparticles makes the energy of
8 Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology

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rical shape, by making the number of nucleation to nanotube aspect ratio on the foam morphology of MWNT/
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