Graphene oxide fillers through polymeric blends of PVC/PVDF using laser ablation technique: electrical behavior, cell viability, and thermal stability

Abstract

Abstract Using pulsed laser ablation technique, graphene oxide (GO) nanoparticles were incorporated into a polymeric blend of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF). The nanocomposites were fabricated in film shapes using the casting method. The obtained films were investigated upon their structure and morphology. The films showed a rough surface with moderate porosity. The maximum roughness peak height increased from 142.9 to 198.9 nm for PVC and GO@PVC/PVDF. The thermal stability of the fabricated films was studied and showed that polymers displayed high stability up to 200 °C then were deteriorated exponentially. The weight loss reached around 3.2 % in the first stage and reached about 93.4 % at the last stage, which was above 400 °C. Further, the contact angle plunged from 90.2±3.4° to 65.4±2.5° for PVC, and GO@PVC/PVDF, respectively. Moreover, the dielectric loss was measured upon the variation of applied frequency. It decreased exponentially, starting from 7.1, 12.7, and 21.8 for PVC, PVC/PVDF and GO@ PVC/PVDF, respectively. The cell viability of the nanocomposite films was measured through the human fibroblasts cell line and showed an improvement upon the additional PVDF and GO to be around 95.3 ± 4 ± 3.5% in the case of GO@PVC/PVDF film.