Effect of melt processing conditions on the reactive extrusion of PA6 organoclay nanocomposites Basak Tuna (1), Hadj Benkreira (1), Adrian Kelly (1) (1) R&KT Centre of Advanced Engineering Materials, School of Engineering, University of Bradford, UK b.tuna@bradford.ac.uk Polyamide-6 (PA6) undergoes thermal degradation during melt processing. The organoclays accelerate chain scission of the PA6 matrix which leads to a matrix of lower molecular weight. In this work we employed a novel chain extender to rebuild the molecular weight which can react with end groups of PA6 during the limiting time of extrusion. Joncryl® ADR 3400 was used as the chain extender and Cloisite® 30B was employed as organoclay. The experiments were performed in APV twin screw extruder (L/D=25) at different temperature profiles and screw speeds and a laboratory scale mixer Haake Minilab Microcompounder to understand effects of melt processing conditions and extruder type on the reactive extrusion of PA6 organoclay nanocomposites. Rheological, thermal and mechanical methods were used to characterise samples. Keywords: Thermal degradation, melt processing, chain extender, reactive extrusion, polyamide organoclay nanocomposite.