Significant improvement in static and dynamic mechanical properties of graphene oxide–carbon nanotube acrylonitrile butadiene styrene hybrid composites

Abstract

Herein, hybridization of graphene nanosheets and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) has been made to solve the problem of restacking of graphene nanosheets and agglomeration of CNTs. The multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), reduced graphene oxide (RGO) and graphene oxide–carbon nanotubes (GCNTs) reinforced acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) composites have been prepared using micro-twin-screw extruder. The effect of these reinforcements on static and dynamic mechanical properties of composites is studied. The ultimate tensile strength and elastic modulus for 7 wt.% GCNT–ABS composites show enhancement of 26.1 and 71.3% over pure ABS matrix, respectively. Various parameters such as coefficient “C” factor (the ratio of storage modulus of the composite to polymer in glassy and rubbery regions), degree of entanglement, crosslink density and adhesion factor have been calculated to analyze the interaction between fillers and polymer matrix. The 3-D hybrid structure of GCNTs overcomes the associated problem of CNTs agglomeration and graphene restacking. GCNT hybrid composites show higher dispersion as well as effectiveness for increased filler amount as compared to RGO and MWCNTs based composites. GCNTs prove its superiority over MWCNTs and RGO by showing a synergistic effect in the glass transition temperature and storage modulus. Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy are used to confirm the interaction and distribution of the filler and matrix, respectively.