Abstract
In this study, reduced graphene oxide (RGO)/polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) nanocomposites were prepared by employing in situ polymerization and solution blending methods. In terms of mechanical properties, RGO loading increased the Young’s modulus but decreased the elongation at break for RGO/PMMA nanocomposites. Tensile strength for solution blended RGO/PMMA nanocomposites increased after adding 0.5 wt % RGO, which was attributed to the good dispersion of RGO in the nanocomposites as evidenced from SEM and TEM. Solar energy conversion efficiency measurement results showed that the optimum concentration of RGO in the RGO/PMMA nanocomposites was found to be 1.0 wt % in order to achieve the maximum solar energy conversion efficiency of 25%. In the present study, the solution blended nanocomposites exhibited better overall properties than in situ polymerized nanocomposites owing to the better dispersion of RGO in solution blending. These findings would contribute to future work in search of higher conversion efficiency using nanocomposites.
Highlights
Graphene is a monolayer hexagonal sp2 hybridized carbon sheet
Graphene obtained by the reduction of graphene oxide through thermal, chemical or electrical treatments is generally known as reduced graphene oxide (RGO)
The results from spectroscopic studies using FTIR, Raman spectroscopy and XPS confirmed that that the Graphene Oxide (GO) was successfully reduced to RGO
Summary
Graphene is a monolayer hexagonal sp hybridized carbon sheet. It has received much attention in recent years due to its high mechanical strength, large specific surface area, and excellent thermal and electrical conductivity [1,2]. Graphene can be synthesized through various methods, such as chemical vapor deposition (CVD), plasma enhanced CVD (PECVD), graphitization of a carbon-containing substrate, solvothermal, organic synthesis, and chemical reduction of graphene oxide [3,4,5]. Researchers have synthesized graphene/polymer nanocomposites with several polymer matrices such as polystyrene, poly(vinyl alcohol), low density polyethylene, polymethyl methacrylate, epoxy and natural rubber composite using different preparation methods like melt intercalation, solution blending, in situ polymerization, etc. Despite various materials having been proposed for heat dissipation [18,19], the highly thermally conductive graphene-based nanocomposites have recently
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