Abstract
Epoxidized natural rubber fibers (ERFs) are developed through one-step electrospinning and directly deposited into epoxy resins without collecting and distributing of fibers. The shape of ERFs shows rough surface due to different evaporation rate of solvent mixture consisting of chloroform and dichloromethane and the average diameter of ERFs is 6.2 µm. The increase of ERFs loading from 0 to 20 wt % into the epoxy resin increases the fracture strain significantly from 1.2% to 13% and toughness from 0.3 MPa to 1.9 MPa by a factor of 7. However, the tensile strength and Young’s modulus decrease about 34% from 58 MPa to 34 MPa and from 1.4 GPa to 0.9 GPa, respectively. Due to the crosslinking reactions between oxirane groups of ERFs and amine groups in the resin, surface roughness and the high aspect ratio of ERFs, ERFs result in more effective toughening effect with the minimum loss of tensile properties in epoxy resins.
Highlights
Electrospinning system typically consists of three basic components: a high voltage supply, a Taylor cone and a metal collector [3]
The electrodes contain a high voltage supply, with one connected to the polymer solution being metered and the other connected to the collector
Because of inherent toughness and high aspect ratio of Epoxidized natural rubber fibers (ERFs), cracks larger than 500 μm are stopped from propagating into larger cracks. These results show that the adhesion between the ERFs and the epoxy resin are reasonably strong with the absence of breakage or pullout features [47]
Summary
Electrospinning as an efficient and versatile technology has been developed for generating ultrafine fibers in a variety of materials, such as polymers, inorganic materials, and hybrid materials [1]. These fibers or non-woven fibrous membranes exhibit diameters ranging from a few nanometers to a few micrometers and have advantages of large surface area-to-volume ratios and various morphological modifications [2]. As electrostatic repulsion counteracts the surface tension on the Taylor cone, the polymer solution is stretched to draw threads [4]. The morphology or mechanical properties can be modified by tuning many parameters such as polymer concentration, distance between a Taylor cone and a collector, applied voltage, syringe feeding rate, etc
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