Effect of functionalized graphene oxide on epoxy thermal and mechanical properties

Abstract

Abstract This work studies the effect of graphene oxide (GO) and monoethanolamine-functionalized graphene oxide (f-GO) on the thermal and mechanical properties of epoxy resin (ER). GO was synthesized by electrochemical exfoliation and functionalized by Fischer esterification. FTIR confirmed the functionalization and the XRD analysis revealed changes in the interlayer spacing of GO. Epoxy resin containing 0.10 to 0.50 wt% of GO and f-GO was prepared and characterized by FTIR, DSC, TGA, and compression testing. DSC studied the activation energy (Ea) of the curing reaction of ER-GO. Ea increased from 56.3 kJ·mol−1 (resin) to 89.1 kJ·mol−1 at 0.13 wt% GO. However, the glass transition temperature did not show significant variation. TGA of ER-GO and ER/f-GO showed thermal stability compared with ER. The ER-GO and ER/f-GO 0.20 wt% formulations exhibited an increase in compressive modulus compared to neat epoxy. The improved mechanical properties of ER/f-GO are attributed to higher interfacial interaction.