Influence of graphene nanoplates and ABS‐g‐MAH on the thermal, mechanical, and electromagnetic properties of PC/ABS blend

Abstract

Polymeric blends based on polycarbonate (PC) and acrylonitrile-styrenebutadiene copolymer (ABS) are applied mainly in the electronic and automotive industries. Studies to improve the properties of PC/ABS blend have led to graphene nanoplates (GNP) addition, a carbon nanofiller derived from graphite that presents some of the promising properties of graphene. In this work, the effect of the addition of GNP (3 and 5 wt%) and maleic anhydride grafted ABS (ABS-g-MAH) were evaluated on the thermal, mechanical, rheological, and electromagnetic properties of PC/ABS blends (85/15), a different blend ratio of previous studies. It was verified that the GNP addition significantly increased the thermal stability of the blends. Furthermore, the mechanical tests showed that ABS-g-MAH acted as an efficient compatibilizer for the PC/ABS blends, and the GNP addition improved the Shore D hardness, the elastic modulus, and the maximum tensile strength of all compositions.Besides, it was observed an overlapping effect of the GNP and ABS-g-MAH addition on the mechanical properties of the blend. The addition of 3 wt% GNP to the PC/ABS (85/15) blend also doubled the elongation at break of the material. Furthermore, these contents resulted in a slight increase of the electromagnetic waves attenuation of 1-2 dB associated to electromagnetic waves reflection.

Synergistic effect of adding graphene nanoplates and carbon nanotubes in polycarbonate/acrylonitrile‐styrene‐butadiene copolymer blend

“…The addition of the single fillers had affected the rheological behavior in lower frequencies (Figure 3). The addition of 3 and 5 wt% of GNP in the PC/ABS/ABS‐ g ‐MAH blend maintains the η * values similar to the matrix; by its shape, it is expected that GNP might be aligned in the shear flow direction 15 . That behavior was observed in the micrographs and justified the slight increase in the η * for both GNP contents (Figure 3a).…”

“…Thus, the hybrid nanocomposites had not achieved the electrical percolation threshold with low fillers content diverting from the literature 23 . That might be associated with the presence of ABS‐ g ‐MAH, which on the one hand, reduces the size of the ABS phase in the PC/ABS blend and, on the other hand, could promote agglomeration of the nanofillers during the preparation process, 15 once the melt mixing process is not the most likely to achieve higher electrical properties 55 . The H 5/1.0 sample had an expressive reduction of four magnitude orders in its electrical resistivity (around 10 6 Ω cm).…”

“…For the CNT 1.0 nanocomposite (Figure 2a, with the MWCNT indicated by the yellow arrows), it is possible to observe that MWCNT were dispersed preferentially in the PC phase and the PC/ABS interface, with no preferential orientation with the injection flow 18 . Although, the GNP (shown in yellow circles) were preferentially aligned in the injection flow direction 15 in the GNP nanocomposites (Figure 2b) and hybrid nanocomposites (Figure 2c,d).…”

“…An alternative to promote this blend to a multifunctional material with EMI SE and reinforce its mechanical and thermal properties, the addition of carbon‐based nanomaterial could be highlighted in the literature for different nanofillers like carbon black (CB), 9,13 graphene oxide, 14 graphene nanoplates (or nanoplatelets, GNP), 7,8,10,11,15 and multi‐wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) 3,5,6,16 . These last two fillers are allotropes of carbon atoms sp 2 ‐hybridized structurally organized in a hexagonal pattern.…”

“…In recent works of our research group, the thermal, electrical, mechanical, and EMI SE properties of PC/ABS/ABS‐ g ‐MAH/GNP 15 and PC/ABS/ABS‐ g ‐MAH/MWCNT 18 nanocomposites were studied. Based on the results of these works, we aimed to prepare PC/ABS/ABS‐ g ‐MAH blends‐based GNP/MWCNT hybrid nanocomposites using traditional industrial processes (extrusion and injection molding) focused on promoting the electrical and EMI SE properties of this blend.…”