Fabrication of reinforced and toughened PC/PMMA composites by tuning the migration and selective location of graphenes during melt blending

• Published in: RSC advances Vol. 1; no. 48; pp. 28527 - 28535
• Main Authors: Peng, Shigui, He, Min, Yang, Zhao, Zhang, Kai, Xue, Bin, Qin, Shuhao, Yu, Jie, Xu, Guomin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Royal Society of Chemistry 03.08.2020; The Royal Society of Chemistry
• Subjects: Chemistry; Compounding; Elongation; Graphene; Mechanical properties; Melt blending; Polymer blends; Polymer matrix composites; Polymethyl methacrylate; Tensile strength; Thermal conductivity; Tuning
• ISSN: 2046-2069; 2046-2069
• DOI: 10.1039/d0ra04790b

In this work, we creatively obtained reinforced and toughened PC/PMMA/GNs composites by tuning the migration and selective location of graphene nanosheets (GNs) during melt blending. TEM results revealed that the migration of GNs in PC/PMMA blends during melt blending always existed no matter how the GNs were introduced, and most of them exclusively localized at the interface of PC and PMMA phase due to interfacial effects. The migration of GNs could refine the size of the dispersed phase, and the exclusive localization of GNs at the interface show obvious interfacial compatibilizing effects, leading to improved mechanical properties of the composites. It was found that the composite prepared by one-step compounding showed significant enhanced strength and toughness with addition of mere 0.05 wt% GNs and the tensile strength and elongation of the composite increased by about 62.96% and 94.54%, respectively as compared to the PC/PMMA blends. Moreover, the composite prepared by one-step compounding also showed improved thermal conductivity at the same time, indicating excellent comprehensive properties. It is believed that tuning the migration and selective localization of GNs open perspectives for the development of high-performance polymer composites. By adjusting the dispersion and distribution of graphene nanosheets (GNs) filler in polycarbonate/polymethyl methacrylate (PC/PMMA) composites, only 0.05 wt% GNs filler can significantly improve the strength and toughness of the composites.