Optical, mechanical, and transport studies of nanodiamonds/poly(phenylene oxide) composites

Abstract

Considerable progress in the development of new materials is achieved due to the modification of polymer materials by carbon nanoparticles of various kinds. In this work new composites of nanodiamonds (ND) and poly (phenylene oxide) (PPO) were prepared by solid phase dispersing. Their solutions and dense nonporous films were studied by different techniques. The structure of the PPO/ND composites was examined by atomic force microscopy, dynamic light scattering, and birefringence. The increase of ND content in the film leads to a more complex structure because of accumulation of aggregates containing ND particles and PPO molecules. The physical and mechanical properties were exhaustively evaluated by measuring intrinsic viscosity, density, surface tension, the Young's modulus, yield stress, tensile strength, and ultimate strain. Gas transport properties were determined by measuring H2, CO2, N2, CH4, and O2 permeation. The gas permeability coefficients decrease slightly with an increase of the ND content in composites, but the ideal selectivity of gas separation increases at the same time. POLYM. COMPOS., 39:3952–3961, 2018. © 2017 Society of Plastics Engineers

Effect of nanodiamond additives on the structure and gas‐transport properties of a poly(phenylene–isophtalamide) matrix

“…The same trend in density increases after ND inclusion into a poly(phenylene oxide) (PPO) matrix was observed in the study in in Ref. , and this influenced the gas‐transport properties.…”

“…The main gas‐transport properties are the gas permeability coefficient and membrane selectivity. It was shown in our previous work that the gas permeability coefficients of PPO decreased slightly with increasing ND content in the composites when ρ exp increased. The incorporation of NDs in the PPO film increased the ideal selectivity in the separation of all gas pairs.…”

“…We prepared the PA and PA–ND dense membranes with a thickness of about 30 μm by casting the 8 wt % solution onto a glass plate. The solvent was removed by evaporation at 40 °C, and the membranes were separated from the support and dried in a vacuum oven at 60 °C to a constant weight …”

“…Membranes based on poly(vinylidene fluoride) modified by NDs have been applied to water desalination by distillation . ND particles have been selected as an inorganic modifier of poly(2,6‐dimethyl‐1,4‐phenylene oxide) membranes for gas separation …”

Pervaporation Purification of Oxygenate from an Ethyl tert-Butyl Ether/Ethanol Azeotropic Mixture

“…Diffusion membranes with ND particles incorporated into the matrix of polyphenylene oxide and polyphenylene isophthalamide exhibited improved transport properties in gas separation processes [26,27] and in the pervaporation of a methanol-methyl acetate mixture [28].…”