Wearable electronic devices, represented by wearable sensors with self-healing performance, are key to the development of the relevant research. However, problems of sensors as low sensitivity, flexibility, durability and self-healing...
This work aims to investigate the performance of the epoxy resin modified by poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(propylene glycol)-b-poly(ethylene glycol) (PEO-PPO-PEO) block copolymers and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs).It is detected that when PEO-PPO-PEO block copolymers and MWCNTs are simultaneously added, synergistic toughening effects for epoxy resin achieve without loss of other properties. Specifically, with the introduction of 5 wt% PEO-PPO-PEO block copolymers, the critical stress intensity factor (K Ic ) of the epoxy resin is increased by 65.7% in contrast with the pure epoxy resin by the reason of the epoxy matrix shear yielding triggered by cavitation of PEO-PPO-PEO nanophases and by 28.7% with the introduction of 0.25 wt% MWCNTs owing to the pull-out and crack bridging of MWCNTs, but other properties are decreased. However, with the simultaneous introduction of 5 wt% PEO-PPO-PEO and 0.25 wt% MWCNTs, the K Ic of epoxy resins is significantly increased by 97.3%, exhibiting much higher than the linear superposition of the corresponding epoxy resin/PEO-PPO-PEO and epoxy resin/MWCNTs composites. Meanwhile, the decrease in other properties is retarded. This is because PEO-PPO-PEO block copolymer can enhance the interactions between MWCNTs and epoxy resins in the epoxy resin/PEO-PPO-PEO/MWCNT composites, thereby promoting the dispersion of MWCNTs in the epoxy resins. Consequently, the fracture toughness of epoxy resins is efficiently boosted by the superposition of the pull-out and crack bridging of well-dispersed MWCNTs and the epoxy matrix shear yielding triggered by the strengthened interactions between PEO-PPO-PEO block copolymers and MWCNTs. This work supplies an easy and efficient means to solve the dispersion of nanoparticles, which can prominently advance the comprehensive properties of epoxy resins.
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