Abstract
This work was conducted to investigate the effect of carbon nanotube (CNT) on the mechanical-physico properties of the electron beam irradiated polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) blends. The increasing of CNT amount up to 1.5 part per hundred resin (phr) has gradually improved tensile strength and Young’s modulus of PVOH/CNT nanocomposites due to effective interlocking effect of CNT particles in PVOH matrix, as evident in SEM observation. However, further increments of CNT, amounting up to 2 phr, has significantly decreased the tensile strength and Young’s modulus of PVOH/CNT nanocomposits due to the CNT agglomeration at higher loading level. Irradiation was found to effectively improve the tensile strength of PVOH/CNT nanocomposites by inducing the interfacial adhesion effect between CNT particles and PVOH matrix. This was further verified by the decrement values of d-spacing of the deflection peak. The increasing of CNT amounts from 0.5 phr to 1 phr has marginally induced the wavenumber of O–H stretching, which indicates the weakening of hydrogen bonding in PVOH matrix. However, further increase in CNT amounts up to 2 phr was observed to reduce the wavenumber of O–H stretching due to poor interaction effect between CNT and PVOH matrix. Electron beam irradiation was found to induce the melting temperature of all PVOH/CNT nanocomposite by inducing the crosslinked networks.
Highlights
The Polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) is a water soluble biodegradable synthetic polymer in which the hydroxyl groups are bonded to each monomer [1,2]
The introduction of electron beam irradiation has tremendously improved the tensile strength of all polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH)/CNTs composites by improving the interfacial interaction between carbon nanotubes particles and PVOH matrix as evident in X-ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis with the decrement of d-spacing and interchains separation of detected crystallite
Further increments in irradiation dosage from 20 kGy to 30 kGy has gradually decreased the tensile strength of all PVOH/CNTs composites due to pre-dominant of the chains scissioning reaction over the crosslinking process in PVOH matrix at higher irradiation dosage
Summary
The Polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) is a water soluble biodegradable synthetic polymer in which the hydroxyl groups are bonded to each monomer [1,2]. The application of carbon nanotubes, as reinforcing fillers in polymer composites, to induce the mechanical properties such as tensile strength, Young’s modulus, impact strength, hardness, etc., has been intensively investigated by numerous researchers [14,15,16]. According to previous studies conducted by various researchers [1,12,13], the application of electron beam irradiation has significantly improved the mechanical and thermal properties of polymer composites by forming the three-dimensional networks. The addition of carbon nanotubes into PVOH matrix is expected to enhance PVOH matrix with higher tensile strength, rigidity, and stiffness due to its large surface areas, high mechanical interlocking effect in polymer matrix, and chemical stability with local stiffening effect in polymer matrix [25,26] It has been widely employed and studied in the application of polymer composites. The SEM micrographs were recorded at the magnification of 3000 times
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