Abstract
A series of composites was prepared from a diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) with different graphene filler contents to improve their mechanical performance and thermal stability. Graphene oxide (GO) and GO modified with hexamethylene tetraamine (HMTA) were selected as reinforcing agents. As a latent cationic initiator and curing agent, N-benzylepyrizinium hexafluoroantimonate (N-BPH) was used. The effect of fillers and their contents on the mechanical properties and thermal stability of the composites were studied. Fracture toughness improved by 23% and 40%, and fracture energy was enhanced by 1.94- and 2.27-fold, for the composites containing 0.04 wt.% GO and HMTA-GO, respectively. The gradual increase in fracture toughness at higher filler contents was attributed to both crack deflection and pinning mechanisms. Maximum thermal stability in the composites was achieved by using up to 0.1 wt.% graphene fillers.
Highlights
Epoxides containing one or more epoxy groups at the end, middle, or center of a molecular chain are considered reactive species which can readily react with curing agents to produce a three-dimensional polymer structure
Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) studies were carried out to investigate the functionalization of both graphite oxide (GO) and hexamethylene tetraamine (HMTA)-GO
The characteristic band in the range of 3000–3500 cm−1 corresponds to OH stretching [42], the band at 1732 cm−1 is related to carbonyl stretching, the band at 1230 cm−1 corresponds to the epoxide functional group [43], and COH/COC stretching vibrations were observed at 1352 cm−1 and
Summary
Epoxides containing one or more epoxy groups at the end, middle, or center of a molecular chain are considered reactive species which can readily react with curing agents to produce a three-dimensional polymer structure These thermosetting polymer structures are widely used in various applications such as paints, coatings, and adhesives due to their high modulus strength, excellent chemical and corrosion resistivities, excellent dimensional stability, good adhesive properties, and low degree of shrinking during the curing process [1,2,3]. Graphene with sp2 -bonded carbon atoms is the most attractive nanofiller in materials science due to its unusual thermal, electrical, and mechanical properties [14,15,16,17] Due to these fundamental properties, many applications have been proposed for graphene and its various chemically modified forms. In previous studies it was proven that the addition of GO to polymer matrix can significantly improve the mechanical properties compared to graphene [18,19,20,21,22,23,24]
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