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Enhanced thermal and mechanical properties of liquid crystalline-grafted graphene oxide-filled epoxy composites

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Abstract

Epoxy composites with biphenyl liquid crystalline polyester (BLCP)-grafted graphene oxides (GO) as inclusions were prepared successfully. The thermal and texture analyses of BLCP were characterized by DSC and POM. The results show that the texture structure of BLCP turned into fan texture from woven texture with increasing temperature and present double texture structure. More importantly, the thermal and mechanical properties of epoxy composites could be improved by incorporating BLCP-grafted GO (BLCP-GO). The epoxy composite with only 0.5 wt% BLCP-GO produced an increase in the initial decomposition temperature (T d) by 28 °C and glass transition temperature (T g) by 17.2 °C when compared with the neat epoxy. Moreover, for the mechanical properties tests, the composites with 1.0 wt% BLCP-GO exhibit an increase in impact strength, tensile strength, flexural strength and flexural modulus by 103, 52, 66, and 56 %, respectively, compared with the neat epoxy resin. These excellent performances of the graphene–epoxy composites have a great potential for applications in aerospace and other electrical devices.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support by National Natural Science Foundation of China (51303034, 51367007, 51463007, and 51573201), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Province, China (2014GXNSFDA118006, 2014GXNSFBA118034 and 2015GXNSFBA139231), Guangxi Universities Scientific Research Project (No. YB2014165), Natural Science Foundation of Ningbo (No. Y40307DB05) and International Science and Technology Cooperation Program of Ningbo (No. 2015D10003), Guangxi Ministry-Province Jointly-Constructed Cultivation Base for State Key Laboratory of Processing for Non-ferrous Metal and Featured Materials (15AA, 13KF-4).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of New Processing Technology for Nonferrous Metals and Materials, Ministry of Education, School of Material Science and Engineering, Guilin University of Technology, Guilin, 541004, China

    Laifu Song, Shaorong Lu, Xiane Xiao, Bo Qi, Zihai He, Xu Xu, Baolin Rao & Jinhong Yu

  2. Key Laboratory of Marine Materials and Related Technologies, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Marine, Materials and Protective Technologies, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, China

    Jinhong Yu

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  1. Laifu Song
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  2. Shaorong Lu
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  4. Bo Qi
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Correspondence to Shaorong Lu or Jinhong Yu.

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Song, L., Lu, S., Xiao, X. et al. Enhanced thermal and mechanical properties of liquid crystalline-grafted graphene oxide-filled epoxy composites. Polym. Bull. 74, 1611–1627 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-016-1792-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-016-1792-2

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