Thermoplastic elastomers containing 2D nanofillers: montmorillonite, graphene nanoplatelets and oxidized graphene platelets

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative study on which type of platelets nanofi ller, organic or inorganic, will affect the properties of thermoplastic elastomer matrix in the stronger manner. Therefore, poly(trimethylene terephthalateblock-poly(tetramethylene oxide) copolymer (PTT-PTMO) based nanocomposites with 0.5 wt.% of clay (MMT), graphene nanoplatelets (GNP) and graphene oxide (GO) have been prepared by in situ polymerization. The structure of the nanocomposites was characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) in order to present good dispersion without large aggregates. It was indicated that PTT-PTMO/GNP composite shows the highest crystallization temperature. Unlike the addition of GNP and GO, the introduction of MMT does not have great effect on the glass transition temperature of PTMO-rich soft phase. An addition of all three types of nanoplatelets in the nanocomposites caused the enhancement in tensile modulus and yield stress. Additionally, the cyclic tensile tests showed that prepared nanocomposites have values of permanent set slightly higher than neat PTT-PTMO.

Clay‐Graphene Nanoplatelets Functional Conducting Composites

“…In this way, direct reduction of GO sheets in the presence of exfoliated montmorillonite nanoplatelets is one of the ways applied to develop these waterdispersible composites. [28][29][30][31] The resulting clay-graphene systems prepared with these GNP may produce stable water dispersions of great interest for diverse applications, as for instance to obtain conductive paints and fl exible selfsupported composites provided of electrical conductivity. So, GO gives rise in an easy way to clay-composite dispersions of good stability but requiring elevated clay/GO (w/w) ratio (>10).…”

Electrically and thermally conductive thin elastic polymer foils containing SiC nanofibers

“…NCs based on PTT-PTMO block copolymer with SiC NFs were synthesised by melt transesterification and subsequently polycondensation following the procedure described previously [21,[23][24][25][26]. Before the synthesis, an appropriate amount of nanofibers was dispersed in bio-1,3-propanenediol (bio-PDO) (Susterra®Propanediol, DuPont Tate&Lyle, USA) using ultra-high speed stirrer (Ultra-Turax T25) and sonicator (Homogenizer HD 2200, Sonoplus, with a frequency of 20 kHz and 75% of power 200 W) in each case for 15 min.…”

Nanocomposites Based on Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomers

“…Moreover, the selected nanofillers, which were described in details in Refs. [10][11][12][13][14][15]26] have been listed as follows: SWCNTs with a diameter of <2 nm, length of 5-30 μm, purity higher than 95%, and surface area of 380 m 2 /g were bought from Grafen Chemical Industries, Grafen Co., Ankara, Turkey [10][11][12]; SiC nanofibers were produced via self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) from elemental Si and poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) powder mixtures and provided by the group of Prof. A. Huczko [26]; GNPs in the form of a powder with less than three graphene layers, x-y dimensions of up to 10 μm, carbon content of ~97.0%, and the oxygen content of ~2.10% were bought from ANGSTRON Materials, Dayton, Ohio, USA [10][11][12]; GO sheets with average particle size of 50 μm obtained from expanded graphite (SLG Technologies GMbH, Germany) by Brodie oxidation method [27] were provided by the Polymer Institute of Slovak Academy of Science) [10,11]; octakis[(n-octyl)dimethylsiloxy]octasilsesquioxane (POSS) was obtained according to a sequential methodology presented in scheme in Ref. [12] and provided by the Centre for Advanced Technologies, Poznan, Poland).…”

“…Thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) belong to the widely studied group of polymers, which express characteristics of both thermoplastics and rubbery materials based on weight concentrations of each part [1][2][3][4][5]. Recently, the incorporation of nanofillers into the TPEs has been converted to a challenging issue for many researchers to obtain unique functional materials with superior mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Organic and inorganic nanoadditives, such as three-dimensional (3D) fullerenes, polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSSs), carbon black (CB); two-dimensional (2D) graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs), montmorillonite (MMT); and one-dimensional (1D) carbon nanotubes and nanofibers (CNTs and CNFs), are widely used as fillers in order to obtain polymer composites with enhanced physical properties at a very low content of nanoparticles.…”

“…PTT is a recently commercialized aromatic polyester, which has become one of the most important polymer materials, since DuPont obtained PTT (Sorona ® EP), which contains 20-37% renewable material from nonfood biomass, and has performance similar to conventional PBT plastics [22]. Additionally, the incorporation of nanofillers with different shapes and aspect ratios into the PTT-PTMO matrix has been already studied [7,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. The main objective of those studies was to investigate the effect of the addition of various types of nanofillers on the mechanical, thermal, electrical, and viscoelastic properties of the PTT-PTMO.…”