Functional Properties of Poly(Trimethylene Terephthalate)-Block-Poly(Caprolactone) Based Nanocomposites Containing Graphene Oxide (GO) and Reduced Graphene Oxide (rGO).

Sandra Paszkiewicz,Ludwika Lipińska,Elżbieta Piesowicz,Amelia Linares,Izabela Irska,Agata Zubkiewicz,Maik Gude,Daria Pawlikowska,Rafał Stanik,Michał Woluntarski,Anna Szymczyk,Tiberio A Ezquerra,Magdalena Kurcz

doi:10.3390/nano9101459

Abstract

This work reports a study on the influence of graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) on the functional properties of poly(trimethylene terephthalate)-block-poly(caprolactone) (PTT-block-PCL-T) (75/25 wt.%/wt.%) copolymer, obtained from dimethyl terephthalate (DMT), 1,3-biopropanediol and polycaprolactone diol (PCL) via in situ polymerization. The article presents, if and how the reduction of graphene oxide, in comparison to the non-reduced one, can affect morphological, thermal, electrical and mechanical properties. SEM examination confirms/reveals the homogeneous distribution of GO/rGO nanoplatelets in the PTT-block-PCL-T copolymer matrix. More than threefold increase in the value of the tensile modulus is achieved by the addition of 1.0 wt.% of GO and rGO. Moreover, the thermal conductivity and thermal stability of the GO and rGO-based nanocomposites are also improved. The differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurement indicates that the incorporation of GO and rGO has a remarkable impact on the crystallinity of the nanocomposites (an increase of crystallization temperature up to 58 °C for nanocomposite containing 1.0 wt.% of GO is observed). Therefore, the high performances of the PTT-block-PCL-T-based nanocomposites are mainly attributed to the uniform dispersion of nanoplatelets in the polymer matrix and strong interfacial interactions between components.

Highlights

The necessity of searching for renewable raw materials for plastic production is well justified by decreasing fossil fuel resources, increasing crude oil prices, emission of greenhouse gasses in standard methods of plastic production and limited biodegradability of plastic materials [1,2,3]
Two series of nanocomposites based on PTT-block-PCL-T were synthesized by in situ polymerization and the effect of graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) on the morphology and functional properties of polymer matrix were studied
One found that the utilized polymerization process allowed us to obtain homogeneously distributed nanoplatelets in the whole volume of the polymer matrix, which resulted in an improvement of mechanical properties

Summary

Introduction

The necessity of searching for renewable raw materials (feedstocks) for plastic production is well justified by decreasing fossil fuel resources, increasing crude oil prices, emission of greenhouse gasses in standard methods of plastic production and limited biodegradability of plastic materials [1,2,3]. These drawbacks make biocomposites more and more interesting for industrial applications. Many bio-based plastics have been tried out, but most of them have never been commercially exploited, due to the development of cheaper, synthetic polymers obtained from crude oil in the 1950s [4]. One of the solutions to improve their properties is to use carbon derivatives (graphene oxide, graphene nanoplatelets, carbon nanotubes, etc.) as fillers

Methods

Results

Conclusion