Hydrothermally resistant thermally reduced graphene oxide and multi-wall carbon nanotube based epoxy nanocomposites

Water diffusion and swelling stresses in highly crosslinked epoxy matrices

“…Such higher density determines an intrinsically smaller chain mobility, which is by some authors usually associated to a less compact system, and hence to a higher free volume [5,11,12,19]. With temperature increase, the more flexible DGEBF network is probably more sensitive to the increased kinetics of water absorption, and this can provide an explanation for the reduction of the gap with DGEBA in absorbed water.…”

Nano-enhanced composite materials under thermal shock and environmental degradation: A durability study

“…The decrease in E r can be linked with irreversible changes in the molecular structure due to the exposure to water at elevated temperatures [31]. However the decrease in E g and E r cannot be solely explained on the basis of the absorbed amount deterioration.…”

“…However, few reports discuss on how CNTs alter the water absorption kinetics and their influence on the durability of nanocomposites [27][28][29][30][31][32] and hybrid multiscale composites [5,32,33]. Published results are somewhat controversial; different studies on the addition of CNTs report: a) improved resistance in water absorption [27,28,31,32], b) limited changes only in water transport but not in equilibrium properties [30] and c) increase in the moisture content and diffusion coefficient in the case of hybrid systems [5,33]. It is therefore obvious that the environmental effects on CNTs modified epoxies and hybrid carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRPs) is still an open issue, which is critical for their reliability when employed for structural components in hostile environments.…”

Long-term behavior of epoxy/graphene-based composites determined by dynamic mechanical analysis

“…The incorporation of graphene and graphene derivatives (graphene oxide, functionalized graphene, graphene nanoplatelets, etc.) in epoxy matrix has been extensively studied for improving mechanical properties [3][4][5], thermal conductivity [6,7], glass transition temperature [8], thermal stability [9,10], tribological properties [11], etc. To achieve good dispersion of graphene into epoxy matrix and strong interfacial interactions, it is necessary to introduce appropriate functional groups on the graphene surface, which are able to react or strongly interact with the epoxy matrix.…”