Perforative silica microsphere-modified phenolphthalein-based poly(arylene ether sulfone) composites: tensile and thermal properties

Abstract

Perforative silica microspheres (PSMs) were prepared by an emulsion method coupled with sol–gel technology and phase separation. Next, phenolphthalein-based poly(arylene ether sulfone)/PSM composites (PES-C/PSM) were fabricated. PSM was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) method. The as-synthesized PSM exhibited a spherical shape with an external diameter of 2–10 µm, surface area of 166.5 m2/g and pore volume of 1.35 cm3/g. SEM and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (energy-dispersive spectroscopy) were used to characterize the morphology and the composition of the composite, respectively. Both SEM and energy-dispersive spectroscopy results revealed that the PES-C polymer chains penetrated into the PSM pores. In addition, the effect of PSM weight content on the mechanical properties and thermal stability of the composites was characterized by tensile tests and thermal analysis, respectively. A 19% increase in tensile strength and a 29% increase in breaking elongation of PES-C were achieved by the addition of 0.50 wt% PSM. Moreover, the thermal oxidative stability of PES-C was remarkably improved with the incorporation of PSM. Compared with pristine PES-C, the final degradation temperature was enhanced by 42 °C at 1.0 wt% PSM loading. Our studies have indicated that PSM is a kind of promising reinforcement for improvement of tensile and thermal properties of engineering plastics.