Preparation, characterization, and properties of in situ formed graphene oxide/phenol formaldehyde nanocomposites

Abstract

Graphene oxide (GO) has shown great potential to be used as fillers to develop polymer nanocomposites for important applications due to their special 2D geometrical structure as well as their outstanding mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties. In this work, GO was incorporated into phenol formaldehyde (PF) resin by in situ polymerization. The morphologies and structures of GO sheets were characterized by FTIR, XRD, and AFM methods. The structure and properties of the GO/PF nanocomposites were characterized using FTIR, XRD, DSC, and TGA methods. Effects of GO content, reactive conditions, and blending methods on the structure and properties of GO/PF nanocomposites were studied. It was found that due to the well dispersion of GO sheets in polymer matrix and the strong interfacial interaction between the GO sheets and PF matrix, the thermal stability and thermal mechanical properties of the GO/PF nanocomposites were greatly enhanced. © 2013 Weihua Xu et al.