Electrical And Thermomechanical Properties Of Epoxy Filled Hybrid Covalent Treated MWCNTs/GNPs Nanocomposites

The investigations on electrical, mechanical and thermal properties of epoxy filled hybrid treated Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs) and Graphene Nanoplatelets (GNPs) were reported in this research. DGEBA epoxy and hybrid MWCNTs/GNPs were respectively used as a matrix and nanofiller in developing improvement into the epoxy polymer. The properties and performances of epoxy hybrid treated MWCNTs/GNPs nanocomposites were investigated and evaluated in this works. The MWCNTs which have an inert surface characteristic are tend to agglomerate and need to be modified in lowering their viscosity of epoxy due to good dispersion of MWCNTs fillers within the matrices. Amino Propyl Triethoxy Silane (APTS) chemical was used as a medium for covalent functionalization utilizing a simplified treatment approaches. Surface treatment evaluation was done by performing a Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy to further confirm the success of the covalent functionalization performed to the MWCNTs surfaces. Then, the GNPs at various filler loadings were added into the MWCNTs and become hybrid MWCNTs/GNPs. The nanocomposites samples with 0.00 wt.%, 0.25 wt.%, 0.50 wt.%, 0.75 wt% and 1.00 wt.% of GNPs loadings were tested by using various electrical, mechanical and thermal testing which are surface resistivity, permittivity, tensile test, flexural test, and DSC analysis. For electrical testing, surface resistivity shows the highest resistivity for epoxy/MWCNTs without GNPs filler while permittivity shows increment for highest GNPs filler loading. In term of mechanical testing, tensile and flexural testing result shows the improvement for epoxy hybrid MWCNTs/GNPs with 30.04% and 38.33% increament compared to the epoxy/MWCNTs without GNPs filler. The experimental results shows that the electrical, mechanical and thermal properties were significantly investigated by the covalent treatment onto the MWCNTs surfaces and addition of GNPs filler. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations on the fractured surfaces shows that the properties improvement in the nanocomposites and filler dispersion as well as the matrix-filler interaction is directly interrelated with the success of covalent functionalization of MWCNTs and GNPs filler addition