Reinforcing natural rubber by amphiphilic graphene oxide for high-performance catheters

Abstract

Graphene oxide (GO) has been considered as a promising nanofiller to reinforce water-borne polymer due to its exceptional mechanical properties and good dispersibility in an aqueous solution. However, the re-aggregation of hydrophilic GO sheets in a hydrophobic polymer matrix with the evaporation of water, resulting from remarkable discrepancy of the interfacial energy, remains a significant challenge to achieve the high-performance GO-based polymer nanocomposites. Herein, the amphiphilic graphene oxide (AGO) rather than the conventional GO is applied to enhance the mechanical properties of natural rubber latex (NRL) through simple solution blending. Our results show that the AGO demonstrates not only good dispersibility in the NRL aqueous solution but also strong hydrophobic interaction with the NRL particles. Benefiting from this amphiphilic character, the good dispersibility of AGO in the NRL matrix is realized after the oven-drying process, leading to a simultaneous enhancement in tensile strength (up to 35 MPa) and elongation at break (up to 1100%). In particular, it is found that the NRL tube, a kind of catheter, demonstrates a remarkable improvement in both blasting pressure, blasting volume with just a small amount addition of AGO (as less as 0.1%). This work provides a simple, green, and efficient route to fabricate high-performance polymer latex/graphene nanocomposites.