Assessment of Mechanical and Electrical Performances of Polylactic Acid/Liquid Natural Rubber/Graphene Platelets Nanocomposites in the Light of Different Graphene Platelets Functionalization Routes

Abstract

The essence core of this study is to investigate the effect of functionalization of graphene platelets (GNPs) and its low loadings of 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, and 1.00 wt% on the chemical, mechanical, and electrical properties of polylactic acid/liquid natural rubber (PLA/LNR) blend prepared by melt blending method. GNPs are treated with amino dodecanoic acid via covalent interaction and Triton X-100 (TX100) via non-covalent interaction to produce ADA-functionalized GNPs (GNP-A) and TX100-functionalized GNPs (GNP-T), respectively. At 0.75 wt% GNPs, the PLA/LNR nanocomposites exhibit the highest tensile strength of 24.38, 35.70, 45.47 MPa for untreated GNPs (GNP-u), GNP-T, and GNP-A, respectively. Variable pressure scanning electron microscopy proves better interaction of treated-GNPs with the matrix, while transmission electron microscopy micrographs have shown that PLA/LNR/GNP-A has the best filler dispersion with minimal stacking and agglomeration found. A remarkable improvement of electrical properties is observed for treated-GNPs nanocomposite with lower percolation threshold value of 0.3 wt% as compared to that of GNP-u nanocomposite (0.4 wt%).