| We prepared a series of nanocomposites filled with carbon materials by melt andsolution blending methods. The electrical and thermal conductivities of thesenanocomposites were discussed. We found that they were influenced by many factors,such as the structure and properties of the fillers and polymer matrix, the processingtechnology, annealing and the synergistic effect between two or more carbonnanomaterials.Based on the nanocavities, we succeeded to promote the toughness ofpolycarbonate composites with graphene nanoplatelets and carbon black. Ascompared with pristine polycarbonate, the incorporation of hybrid fillers enhanced thenotched impact toughness (60%) without sacrificing the elastic modulus, the tensilestrength, or the hardness. Simultaneously, benefited from these small pores, thecarbon-based fillers found much ease in forming conducting paths, delivering two tothree orders of magnitude leap in electrical conductivities. Instead of usingsophisticated lithography or assembly techniques, our progress was built on a thermalprocessing enabled nanofeature growth in bulk polymers, suggesting great ease intransplanting this mechanism to many other structural materials.Then, we investigated the thermal stability and mechanical property ofpolyvinyl chloride/graphene nanocomposites which were prepared by in situ ballmilling and solvent-casting methods. With the help of the shear stress of high-energyball mill, graphene sheets evenly dispersed in polyvinyl chloride matrix and formedgood interfacial adhesion, resulted in the significant improvement of thermal stabilityand mechanical property. Especially, these nanocomposites showed the moreexcellent tensile property compared with those produced by ultrasonic method, andthe tensile strength increased more than60%at a filler loading of1wt%. It wasdemonstrated that this performance greatly depended on the chemical and physicaladsorption between graphene and matrix except the good dispersibility and interfacialadhesion of graphene sheets. |
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