Abstract
Epoxy nanocomposites reinforced with various grades of multilayer graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) are manufactured and tested. The effects of size, surface area, and concentration of GNP, as well as alternating current (AC) frequency on the electrical and dielectric properties of epoxy nanocomposites are experimentally investigated. GNPs with larger size and surface area are always beneficial to increase the electrical conductivity of the composites. However, their effects on the dielectric constant are highly dependent on GNP concentration and AC frequency. At lower GNP concentration, the dielectric constant increases proportionally with the increase in GNP size, while decreasing as the AC frequency increases. At higher GNP concentration in epoxy, the dielectric constant first increases with the increase of the GNP size, but decreases thereafter. This trend is also observed for varying the processed GNP surface area on the dielectric constant. Moreover, the variations of the electrical conductivity and dielectric constant with the GNP concentration and AC frequency are then correlated with the measured interfiller spacing and GNP diameter.
Highlights
Two-dimensional graphene and its derivatives have attracted tremendous interest, due to their excellent mechanical and physical properties
Concentration and alternating current (AC) frequency are correlated with the measured interfiller spacing and Keywords: graphene platelet; epoxy nanocomposites; electrical conductivity; dielectric constant
A lot of effort has been devoted to studying the electrical properties of graphene-reinforced composites, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, limited work has been found on the investigating the effect of the size and surface area of graphene towards the AC electrical conductivity and dielectric constant of the epoxy nanocomposites
Summary
Two-dimensional graphene and its derivatives have attracted tremendous interest, due to their excellent mechanical and physical properties. The insulating nature of epoxy composites results in inferior resistance to damage and poor electrical discharge properties when subjected to electrical loads [59] Examples of these events may include lightning strike damage on fiber-reinforced epoxy composites structures, inducing delamination damage, that further degrades the mechanical properties [60,61,62]. This poses a challenge where highly electrically conductive epoxies are desired. A lot of effort has been devoted to studying the electrical properties of graphene-reinforced composites, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, limited work has been found on the investigating the effect of the size and surface area of graphene towards the AC electrical conductivity and dielectric constant of the epoxy nanocomposites. The enhancements of GNP towards the electrical properties are correlated with the spacing between fillers along with the measured size of the GNPs in epoxy via scan electron microscopy
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