Effects of carbon nanoparticles on properties of thermoset polymer systems

Polymer nanocomposites are novel materials in which at least one of the dimensions of the reinforcing material is on the order of 100 nm or less. While thermoplastic nanocomposites have been studied very widely, there are fewer studies concerning the effect of nanoparticles on thermoset systems. Low temperature cure thermoset systems are very important for many important applications. In this study, the processing, mechanical and thermal properties and reaction kinetics of carbon nanofiber (CNF) and/or carbon nanotubes (CNT) reinforced low temperature vinyl ester and epoxy nanocomposites were studied. In the first part, the processing challenge of incorporating CNFs into conventional fiber reinforced composites made by Vacuum infusion resin transfer molding (VARTM) was addressed by a new technique. The CNFs are pre-bound on the long fiber mats, instead of mixing them in the polymer resin, thereby eliminating several processing drawbacks. The resulting hybrid nanocomposites showed significant improvements in tensile, flexural and thermal properties. The effect of CNFs on the mold filling in VARTM was also studied and shown to follow the Darcy's law.;In the second part, the effect of CNFs on the low temperature cure kinetics of vinyl ester and epoxy resins is studied using a thermal analysis technique, namely Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The effect of CNFs on the free radical polymerization of vinyl esters was found to be very complex as the CNFs interact with the various curing ingredients in the formulation. Specifically, the interaction effects of CNFs and the inhibitor were studied and a reaction mechanism was proposed to explain the observed phenomenon. The effect of surface modification of the carbon nanoparticles on the cure kinetics of wind-blade epoxy was studied. The surface functionalization reduced the activation energy of the epoxy reaction and was found to have an acceleration effect on the cure kinetics of epoxy resin at room temperature.;In the final part, the preparation, properties and characterization of a thin film of carbon nanoparticles, also called a "nanopaper" was studied. Specifically, a new layer-by-layer multiparticle nanopaper was prepared and this layer-by-layer approach improved the mechanical properties of the stand alone nanopaper. The cure kinetics of epoxy resin in the presence of unmodified CNF paper and polyethyleneimine modified CNF paper were studied and modeled using an autocatalytic model. The nanopaper was also used as a functional coating in conventional fiber reinforced epoxy composites and improved several properties such as abrasion resistance and electromagnetic shielding effectiveness.