Preparation And Electrorheology Of Polystyrene/Graphene Oxide/CNTs Composite Microspheres

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene oxide (GO) has excellent mechanical,chemical stability, electrical and thermal properties, which offer more opportunities forthem to be used as reinforcing materials of the polymer composites. GO was synthesizedby the Hummers method. SEM, FT-IR, XRD,TG, Raman test showed that the graphitewas successfully peeled and oxidized to GO. Disaggregation and uniform dispersion arecritical challenges that must be met to successfully produce such composite materials,since carbon nanotubes tend to self-associate into micro-scale aggregates. Therefore,taking advantage of UV and standing observation, we can analyze the role of surfactangsin dispersion of carbon nanotubes. The following conclusions were achieved in this study:appropriate ultrasonic time (30min), UV absorption from225-300nm-1on CNTsincreased after adding CTAB、SDS、SDBS, and CTAB showed the best result.Monodisperse PS microspheres were synthesized by dispersion polymerizationmethod. We obtained optimal experimental conditions such as monomer concentration,molecular weight of stabilizer and polymerization time on the size distribution of1μm PSmicrospheres. Ideal conditions for this experiment is: the St amount is35mL; themolecular weight of the stabilizer (PVP) is40000, the reaction time reached15h.By coating conducting material in the surface of PS, polymer composite microsphereswith low conductivity were obtained and could be used as electrorheological (ER)material. PS/GO/CNTs microspheres were synthesized based on the preparation ofmonodisperse PS microspheres and GO. We investigated the influence of the quantity ofthe surface conducting layer, relative mass fraction of the particles and viscosity of baseoil on the ER and dielectric properties of the PS/GO/CNTs. It is observed that the massfraction of the conducting layer is1%, showing a negative ER effect; ER effect wasenhanced when the conducting layer increased from1%to4.5%, but ER effect was onlyfound at1.5kV/mm for4.5wt%; When the content of conductive layer is certain, thedispersed particles increased from5%to10%, ER effect enhanced; when viscosity of thebase oil increased from50cS to100cS, the ER effect also strengthened.