To improve the impact strength of nylon 6 at low temperature, poly(ethylene oxide) unit was incorporated into nylon 6 main chain. This method, however, was accompanied with some unavoidable problems such as the drastic decrease in modulus and breaking strength and highly increased elongation at break. To resolve these problems, we obtained the nylon 6-PEO copolymer/montmorillonite nanocomposites chips from thein situ polymerization of $varepsilon-caprolactam$ in the presence of 12-aminododecanoic acid intercalated montmorillonite using poly(ethylene oxide) diamine as a soft segment and 6-aminocaproic acid as a polymerization catalyst. Their structural, thermal, and mechanical properties were characterized using wide angle x-ray diffraction(WAXD), SEM, DSC, and tensile testing.
