Abstract: Thermogravimetric analysis was used to characterize the modification effect of silicane coupling agent on nano-silica. It showed that the optimized dosage of silicane coupling agent for chemical-bonded coating was 5 phr. The modified nano-silica was introduced into poly (butylene succinate) (PBS) and the crystallization kinetics of the system was studied using differential scanning calorimeter and polarizing optical microscope. It showed that the surface modified nano-silica had a heterogeneous nucleation effect and led to an increase in crystallization rate and a decrease in crystallinity. However, the crystallization temperature raised only 4 ℃ even at high nano-silica content of 10 %. With the increase of silica content, the tensile strength and elongation at break firstly increased and then declined, nevertheless the change of tensile strength was moderate. When the content of modified nano-silica was 1.5 %, the elongation at break reached 10.79 %, which contrasted to 7.53 % of neat PBS.

Key words: poly (butylene succinate), nano-silica, surface modification, crystallization behavior, mechanical property