Process development and its characteristics of barium titanate/epoxy resin nanocomposites

Ultrasonication optimisation and microstructural characterisation for 3D nanoparticle dispersion in thermoplastic and thermosetting polymers

“…2a and 2b. BaTiO 3 was added in low volume fractions (3 vol%) and is expected to be far below the percolation threshold, as confirmed by the literature [43], [57].…”

“…The classical mechanical shear mixing approach insufficiently breaks up the massive agglomerates, as observed previously in the literature, and results in a broad volumetric cluster size distribution acquired by XCT in Fig. 3a [43]. The agglomerates as large as 100 μm, which is approximately 500 times the primary particle size, are prone to sedimentation to the bottom of the mould during curing.…”

“…As benchmarking systems, both a thermoset and thermoplastic matrix are selected as commonly used types of polymer matrices. First, BaTiO 3 is a polar ferroelectric particle often used as a fiducial marker for DVC or in dielectrics for capacitors [12,24,39,[41][42][43]. A strong agglomeration of BaTiO 3 has been observed in epoxy and needs to be resolved to not influence the final matrix properties [43].…”

“…First, BaTiO 3 is a polar ferroelectric particle often used as a fiducial marker for DVC or in dielectrics for capacitors [12,24,39,[41][42][43]. A strong agglomeration of BaTiO 3 has been observed in epoxy and needs to be resolved to not influence the final matrix properties [43]. An ultrasonication approach avoiding any solvent is developed by directly dispersing the nanoparticles in the epoxy resin and hardener.…”