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Effect of compound coupling agent treatment on mechanical property and water absorption of hollow glass microspheres/epoxy composite

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Abstract

Hollow glass microspheres (HGMs), as a reinforcing material to prepare lightweight high-performance composites, have excellent mechanical properties. However, the composites prepared by simply mixing hollow glass microspheres with polymer resin have poor performance. In this study, compound coupling agent-modified HGM/EP composites were prepared by casting process with two silane coupling agents as compound coupling agents. Scanning electron microscopy and infrared (IR) spectroscopy were used to characterize the treated HGM. Meanwhile density, water absorption behavior, and mechanical properties of the modified HGM-filled epoxy composites were examined. It is found that the compound coupling agent could effectively improve the interfacial bonding between HGM and the matrix resin. A new chemical bond was formed between HGM and EP, which was confirmed by IR spectroscopy. Compared with their untreated counterparts, the composites treated with the complex coupling agent exhibited excellent mechanical properties, along with lower density and lower water absorption.

Graphical abstract

The composites prepared by treating hollow glass microspheres with mixed coupling agents showed improved properties in all the cases. The mechanical properties of the composites prepared using No. HGM-1 reached the maximum with tensile strength of 36.38 MPa, tensile modulus of 2.383 GPa, flexural strength of 49.82 MPa, flexural modulus of 1.558 GPa, and compressive strength of 98.14 MPa. Our strategy opens a new way to fabricate composites with enhanced mechanical performances.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Foundation of State Key Laboratory of High-efficiency Utilization of Coal and Green Chemical Engineering (Grant no. 2021-K19), the Opening Project of State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure (Grant no. SKL202003SIC), the Key Technologies R&D Program of Anhui Province of China (Grant no. 202104a05020033). Acknowledge is also to the support of General Projects of Shenzhen Stable Development (SZWD2021003) and Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2020B1515120002), the University Engineering Research Center of Crystal Growth and Applications of Guangdong Province (2020GCZX005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Huainan, 232001, China

    Zhaolin Zhu, Yin Liu, Guiyang Xian, Yan Wang, Chongmei Wu & Jinxiang Wang

  2. Anhui Triumph Base Material Technology Co., LTD, Bengbu, 232000, China

    Xiaobo Peng

  3. College of New Materials and New Energies, Shenzhen Technology University, Shenzhen, 518118, Guangdong, China

    Lingbing Kong

  4. State Key Laboratory of Mining Response and Disaster Prevention and Control in Deep Coal Mines, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Huainan, 232001, Anhui, China

    Yin Liu

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  1. Zhaolin Zhu
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Correspondence to Yin Liu.

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Zhu, Z., Liu, Y., Xian, G. et al. Effect of compound coupling agent treatment on mechanical property and water absorption of hollow glass microspheres/epoxy composite. Macromol. Res. 31, 771–779 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13233-023-00160-7

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