Polyacrylic Acid Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes And The Application In Epoxy Resin

Carbon nanotubes as a kind of quasi one-dimensional functionalized materialshave great potential value in many high-tech fields. Epoxy resin is one kind ofthermosetting resin material, having a lot of advantages, such as excellent bondingproperties, mechanical properties, resistance to chemical corrosion, low cost andstrong practicability, so it occupies important position in the field of preparation ofpolymer matrix composites materials. So far, there have been many scholars to get thefunctionalized carbon nanotubes/epoxy resin composite materials by using differentmethods and characterizing its properties at the same time, from carboxylfunctionalized carbon nanotubes to amino functionalized carbon nanotubes, then tosilane functionalized carbon nanotubes, they all improve the mechanical properties ofcomposite materials to a certain extent. But there are still many problems, such asprocess complexity and expensive raw materials, excessive oxidation and poordispersion. The paper adopts acrylic which owns low cost and excellent performanceto prepare for polyacrylic acid functionalized carbon nanotubes/epoxy resincomposite materials by using the precipitation polymerization method, achieving thepurpose to enhance toughness of the composite materials.The precipitation polymerization method was adopted to explore the optimumprocess conditions of polyacrylic acid functionalized carbon nanotubes. Propertieswere charactered by the dispersion, SEM, TEM, FTIR and TG. Experimental resultsshowed that polyacrylic acid functionalized effect was the best when carbonnanotubes content was40mg and acrylic acid content was2.5ml.A series of CNTs/PAA/EP composite materials were prepared by casting method.The optimum process conditions were investigated. The properties of the compositematerials were charactered by SEM, TEM, tensile strength and impact strengthanalysis. Results showed that the optimum process condition was80℃/2h+130℃ /2h+150℃/1h; When functionalized carbon nanotube content was1%, mechanicsperformance of the compound material was the best. Tensile strength increased by112.4%and impact strength increased by79.34%.