Polymer, Vol.119, 118-133, 2017
Effect of structural disparity of graphene-based materials on thermo-mechanical and surface properties of thermoplastic polyurethane nanocomposites
Nanocomposites based on thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and graphene-based materials such as graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (RGO) was synthesized by in-situ solution polymerization technique. The effect of structural differences between GO and RGO in the thermo-mechanical and surface properties of TPU at ultralow concentration was the foremost aspiration of this work. TPU/GO nanocomposites exhibited superior mechanical properties compared to TPU/RGO nano composites at very low loading. With the incorporation of 0.10 wt% of GO, the resultant nanocomposite showed 280% increase in tensile strength and 410% increase in toughness. Interestingly, the elongation at break nanocomposite increased from 588% for pristine TPU to 1006% for TPU/GO-0.10. Property improvement of RGO filled nanocomposite was not so prominent as compared to GO filled nano composites. Thermal stability of the nanocomposites as examined by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) depicted a 12 degrees C increase in thermal stability for 0.2 wt% GO filled nanocomposite whereas the same for RGO filled nanocomposite was only 6 C. Contact angle study revealed that the RGO filled nano composites were becoming more hydrophobic whereas GO filled nanocomposites films showed the opposite trend. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:Graphene oxide (GO);Reduced graphene oxide (RGO);Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU);Thermo-mechanical properties;Surface properties