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The Metal oxide nanoparticles, used as fillers in polymer matrices have resulted in remarkable changes in the physio-chemical properties of the resulting polymer nanocomposites. The zinc oxide (ZnO), cobalt oxide (Co3O4) and magnesium oxide (MgO) nanoparticles were synthesized using solution combustion synthesis. Mechanical properties of the polymer nanocomposites prepared by solvent casting were examined by a nanoindentation technique and they are found to exhibit a notable decrease in the elastic modulus and hardness. The plastic deformation in the polymer nanocomposites occur at a lower indentation depth compared to the pristine PVA indicating that the nanocomposites are more ductile than the host polymer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nanofillers in the macromolecular matrix have displayed noteworthy changes in the structure and reactivity of the polymer nanocomposites. Novel functional materials usually consist of defects and are largely disordered. The intriguing properties of these materials are often attributed to defects. X-ray line profiles from powder diffraction reveal the quantitative information about size distribution and shape of diffracting domains which governs the contribution from small conventional X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques to enumerate the microstructural information. In this study the MgO nanoparticles were prepared by solution combustion method and PVA/NaCl/MgO nanocomposite films were synthesized by the solvent cast method. Microstructural parameters viz crystal defects like stacking faults and twin faults, compositional inhomogeneity, crystallite size and lattice strain (g in %), were extracted using whole pattern fitting method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]