Improving Oxidation Resistance of Polyphenylene Sulfide Fibers by Adding Antioxidant Loaded Halloysite Nanotubes

The polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) fiber, renowned for its exceptional heat and chemical resistance, finds extensive applications in high-temperature filtration, protective clothing, electronics, automobile and aircraft sectors. However, the oxidation susceptibility of PPS fiber at elevated temperature significantly restricts its practical applications. In this study, a PPS nanocomposite fiber with improved oxidation resistance is prepared by incorporating a low content of antioxidant TH-1790 loaded halloysite nanotubes (T-HNTs) via melt spinning. The successful loading of TH-1790 into HNTs is demonstrated through TEM, TGA and FT-IR. The PPS/T-HNTs nanocomposite fiber with 0.6 wt% of T-HNTs performs the best during the mechanical test, showing a higher breaking strength (4.63 cN/dtex) than others. In addition, an increase of 16.9 °C is found for the maximum weight loss temperature (T max ) of the 0.4 wt% T-HNTs loading sample by TGA, suggesting a better thermal stability. Most importantly, the retention rate of breaking strength is found to be 91.0 % for PPS/T-HNTs-0.6 nanocomposite fibers while that of the pure PPS is only 79.1 % after thermo-oxidative aging. This work provides an effective and accessible method for improving the thermal stability and oxidation resistance of PPS fibers, which thereby helps to extend the applications of PPS fibers in high temperature environment.