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Reinforcement of Silanized Milled Graphite Nanoparticles to Enhance Mechanical and Fracture Performance of Epoxy Nanocomposite
Abstract
In this work, we used milled graphite nanoparticles (GrNPs) to fabricate highperformance epoxy nanocomposite. Motivation aroused due to the ease of production of GrNPs from graphite flakes and their cost-effectiveness. Herein, The GrNPs was silanization using 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane after oxidation. The oxidation of GrNPs helps to disaggregate and generate oxygenated functional groups at their surfaces. These oxygenated functional groups were utilized to graft active amino functional groups at GrNPs. FTIR and TGA analysis are conducted to confirm the successful silanization, whereas, FESEM and TEM are used to study the morphology of GrNPs. Morphological analysis of GrNPs reveals its porous structure consisting of stacked and randomly oriented planes with a large number of defect sites. All these pores and defects are found well camouflaged after silanization, as can be seen from FESEM morphology analysis in Figure 1. Both pristine and silanized GrNPs (0.5 wt%) were dispersed separately into the epoxy resin system and cured. The testing results reveal that the addition of 0.5 wt% of pristine GNPs in the epoxy system enhances the tensile strength, Young’s modulus and fracture toughness by ∼2%, ∼- 7%, and ∼-16% respectively with respect to that of neat epoxy. Whereas, the formation of active amino functional groups on silanized GrNPs helps them to covalently bond with epoxy network and hence increased the same properties by ~33%, ~5%, and ~43% respectively. Such enhancement in the mechanical and fracture properties can open up the scope for the utilization of GrNPs as a potentially cost-effective and alternative candidate to mitigate damages of epoxy nanocomposites compared to CNTs as well as graphene.
DOI
10.12783/asc35/34934
10.12783/asc35/34934