Water‐borne reduced graphene oxide (rGO)/polymer composites have been synthesized by emulsion mixing and in situ polymerization. The main challenge is to synthesize colloidally stable hybrid latexes that are able to produce composite films by water evaporation at standard atmospheric conditions for their possible application as electrically conductive coatings. The selected polymer system is composed from poly(methyl metacrylate/butyl acrylate) in 50/50 wt% ratio in order to obtain glass transition temperature of the final film lower than the room temperature. The polymer is joined with rGO stable dispersions, which are prepared by reduction of GO in the presence of polyvynil pyrrolidone (PVP). The latex blends are composed of weakly bonded rGO platelets with polymer particles by the presence of PVP, whereas the covalent bonds between the polymers and the rGO in the in situ hybrid latexes are established. Both procedures result in stable hybrid latexes, from which layered composites are obtained by slow water evaporation. The composite blends present better self‐organization of rGO, tendency of segregated network formation, and electrically conductive properties. The in situ composites present decreased aggregation of rGO, uniformly distributed rGO in the polymeric matrix and lower conductivity.
poly mer reaction engineering, helping to improve poly mer properties and polymerization processes through fundamental knowledge of polymerization mechanisms along with mathematical modeling.Radmila Tomovska obtained a BS in chemical engineering, and an MS and PhD in chemistry from the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, University St Cyril and Methodius, Skopje, Macedonia. She completed postdoctoral study at the Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals of the Czech Academy of Sciences in the field of laser chemistry, supported by a NATO postdoctoral fellowship. Currently, she is a research professor at the POLYMAT Institute, University of the Basque Country, Spain. She is engaged in the investigation of (photo)polymerization in dispersed systems and the synthesis of novel polymer and composite nanostructured particles.The small number of published works concerning waterborne polymer/graphene composites, despite great interest in graphene research, indicates that research in this field is just beginning. Two techniques for polymer composite synthesis using graphenic fillers have been proposed: (i) emulsion mixing and (ii) in situ emulsion, Macromol. Mater. Eng. 2017, , 1600315 Scheme 1. Schematic representation of (a) monolayer graphene oxide platelet structure and (b) monolayer graphene platelet structure.
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