Preparation and Characterization of Functionalized Graphene/Linear Low Density Polyethylene Nanocomposites

Abstract

The present work deals with the functionalization of graphene sheet and preparation of functionalized graphene/linier low density polyethylene (LLDPE) nanocomposites by solution-mix techniques. Dodecyl amine (DA) has been used for the surface modification of graphene oxide (GO) and hydrazine as reducing agent. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra exhibits the appearance of new peaks in the functionalized graphene (DA-G), which suggests the functionalization of graphene by DA. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis infers the formation of fully exfoliated DA-G/LLDPE nanocomposites. The tensile strength (TS) and elongation at break (EB) of the composites are higher in comparison to neat LLDPE. The nanocomposites with only 0.5 wt.% of DA-G content results in TS and EB to be 17% and 10% higher compared to neat LLDPE. TGA shows that the thermal stability of the DA-G/LLDPE nanocomposites is higher compared to pure matrix polymer.