TY - JOUR
T1 - Effect of surfactant treatment on thermal stability and mechanical properties of CNT/polybenzoxazine nanocomposites
AU - Kaleemullah, Muhammad
AU - Khan, Shafi Ullah
AU - Kim, Jang Kyo
N1 - Funding Information:
This project was supported by the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong SAR (Project No. 614505, 614010) and the National Engineering and Scientific Commission of Pakistan. The authors are grateful to Prof. Hatsuo Ishida of Case Western Reserve University for invaluable comments on the manuscript. The benzoxazine thermoset resin and liquid cycloaliphatic epoxy were supplied by Huntsman Advanced Materials.
PY - 2012/11/16
Y1 - 2012/11/16
N2 - The mechanical and thermo-mechanical properties of polybenzoxazine nanocomposites containing multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) functionalized with surfactant are studied. The results are specifically compared with the corresponding properties of epoxy-based nanocomposites. The CNTs bring about significant improvements in flexural strength, flexural modulus, storage modulus and glass transition temperature, Tg, of CNT/polybenzoxazine nanocomposites at the expense of impact fracture toughness. The surfactant treatment has a beneficial effect on the improvement of these properties, except the impact toughness, through enhanced CNT dispersion and interfacial interaction. The former four properties are in general higher for the CNT/polybenzoxazine nanocomposites than the epoxy counterparts, and vice versa for the impact toughness. The addition of CNTs has an ameliorating effect of lowering the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of polybenzoxazine nanocomposites in both the regions below and above Tg, whereas the reverse is true for the epoxy nanocomposites. This observation has a particular implication of exploiting the CNT/polybenzoxazine nanocomposites in applications requiring low shrinkage and accurate dimensional control.
AB - The mechanical and thermo-mechanical properties of polybenzoxazine nanocomposites containing multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) functionalized with surfactant are studied. The results are specifically compared with the corresponding properties of epoxy-based nanocomposites. The CNTs bring about significant improvements in flexural strength, flexural modulus, storage modulus and glass transition temperature, Tg, of CNT/polybenzoxazine nanocomposites at the expense of impact fracture toughness. The surfactant treatment has a beneficial effect on the improvement of these properties, except the impact toughness, through enhanced CNT dispersion and interfacial interaction. The former four properties are in general higher for the CNT/polybenzoxazine nanocomposites than the epoxy counterparts, and vice versa for the impact toughness. The addition of CNTs has an ameliorating effect of lowering the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of polybenzoxazine nanocomposites in both the regions below and above Tg, whereas the reverse is true for the epoxy nanocomposites. This observation has a particular implication of exploiting the CNT/polybenzoxazine nanocomposites in applications requiring low shrinkage and accurate dimensional control.
KW - A. Carbon nanotubes
KW - A. Nanocomposites
KW - B. Surface treatments
KW - B. Thermal properties
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84867313563&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.compscitech.2012.08.020
DO - 10.1016/j.compscitech.2012.08.020
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84867313563
SN - 0266-3538
VL - 72
SP - 1968
EP - 1976
JO - Composites Science and Technology
JF - Composites Science and Technology
IS - 16
ER -