Poly(vinyl alcohol) foams reinforced with carbon nanotubes for stapedial annular ligament applications

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis study aims to develop carbon nanotubes (CNTs) reinforced poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) foams as a possible material for stapedial annular ligament (SAL) application. As‐grown (AG) and purified CNTs are used as reinforcing fillers for PVA foams. Uniaxial and cyclic compression tests reveal that specific modulus and energy dissipation behavior improve after reinforcing foam with CNTs. A relatively higher improvement in specific modulus is recorded for purified CNTs as they tend to produce stiffer cell walls. Thermogravimetric analysis shows thermal stability improves after addition of CNTs in PVA foams. The 50 wt % degradation temperature is higher for PVA_AG foam in comparison to neat PVA foam. Under dynamic loading storage, modulus is found to be higher for CNT doped foams with higher relative improvement with purified CNTs than AG CNTs. It is shown that reinforcing PVA foams with purified CNTs is a feasible strategy to improve their average mechanical properties and microstructure for SAL application. While the specific elastic modulus of neat PVA foam found to be in range of 0.05–0.06 MPa gcc−1 with almost zero porosity. The addition of CNTs provides a wide range of specific elastic modulus 0.1–1.3 MPa gcc−1 with an average pores size of about 300 μm. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2020, 137, 48736.