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Melt processing and characterisation of polyamide 6/graphene nanoplatelet composites

Melt processing and characterisation of polyamide 6/graphene nanoplatelet composites
Melt processing and characterisation of polyamide 6/graphene nanoplatelet composites

Graphene, due to its outstanding properties, has become the topic of much research activity in recent years. Much of that work has been on a laboratory scale however, if we are to introduce graphene into real product applications it is necessary to examine how the material behaves under industrial processing conditions. In this paper the melt processing of polyamide 6/graphene nanoplatelet composites via twin screw extrusion is investigated and structure-property relationships are examined for mechanical and electrical properties. Graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) with two aspect ratios (700 and 1000) were used in order to examine the influence of particle dimensions on composite properties. It was found that the introduction of GNPs had a nucleating effect on polyamide 6 (PA6) crystallization and substantially increased crystallinity by up to 120% for a 20% loading in PA6. A small increase in crystallinity was observed when extruder screw speed increased from 50 rpm to 200 rpm which could be attributed to better dispersion and more nucleation sites for crystallization. A maximum enhancement of 412% in Young's modulus was achieved at 20 wt% loading of GNPs. This is the highest reported enhancement in modulus achieved to date for a melt mixed thermoplastic/GNPs composite. A further result of importance here is that the modulus continued to increase as the loading of GNPs increased even at 20 wt% loading and results are in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions for modulus enhancement. Electrical percolation was achieved between 10-15 wt% loading for both aspect ratios of GNPs with an increase in conductivity of approximately 6 orders of magnitude compared to the unfilled PA6.

2046-2069
52395-52409
Mayoral, B.
c6189803-b7ed-46af-8ddb-7ee36de70347
Harkin-Jones, E.
7a423b61-46be-4d35-ae45-4d441bac1f25
Khanam, P. Noorunnisa
a14cfede-53d3-4931-83a5-d640ad523292
Almaadeed, M. A.
04eaa292-0194-4522-bc09-dfaac17923ef
Ouederni, M.
b950746b-3f2b-41e0-94a2-c9dd2c07a262
Hamilton, A. R.
9088cf01-8d7f-45f0-af56-b4784227447c
Sun, D.
fbf468b8-3ce4-42f6-b978-58f93accb381
Mayoral, B.
c6189803-b7ed-46af-8ddb-7ee36de70347
Harkin-Jones, E.
7a423b61-46be-4d35-ae45-4d441bac1f25
Khanam, P. Noorunnisa
a14cfede-53d3-4931-83a5-d640ad523292
Almaadeed, M. A.
04eaa292-0194-4522-bc09-dfaac17923ef
Ouederni, M.
b950746b-3f2b-41e0-94a2-c9dd2c07a262
Hamilton, A. R.
9088cf01-8d7f-45f0-af56-b4784227447c
Sun, D.
fbf468b8-3ce4-42f6-b978-58f93accb381

Mayoral, B., Harkin-Jones, E., Khanam, P. Noorunnisa, Almaadeed, M. A., Ouederni, M., Hamilton, A. R. and Sun, D. (2015) Melt processing and characterisation of polyamide 6/graphene nanoplatelet composites. RSC Advances, 5 (65), 52395-52409. (doi:10.1039/c5ra08509h).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Graphene, due to its outstanding properties, has become the topic of much research activity in recent years. Much of that work has been on a laboratory scale however, if we are to introduce graphene into real product applications it is necessary to examine how the material behaves under industrial processing conditions. In this paper the melt processing of polyamide 6/graphene nanoplatelet composites via twin screw extrusion is investigated and structure-property relationships are examined for mechanical and electrical properties. Graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) with two aspect ratios (700 and 1000) were used in order to examine the influence of particle dimensions on composite properties. It was found that the introduction of GNPs had a nucleating effect on polyamide 6 (PA6) crystallization and substantially increased crystallinity by up to 120% for a 20% loading in PA6. A small increase in crystallinity was observed when extruder screw speed increased from 50 rpm to 200 rpm which could be attributed to better dispersion and more nucleation sites for crystallization. A maximum enhancement of 412% in Young's modulus was achieved at 20 wt% loading of GNPs. This is the highest reported enhancement in modulus achieved to date for a melt mixed thermoplastic/GNPs composite. A further result of importance here is that the modulus continued to increase as the loading of GNPs increased even at 20 wt% loading and results are in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions for modulus enhancement. Electrical percolation was achieved between 10-15 wt% loading for both aspect ratios of GNPs with an increase in conductivity of approximately 6 orders of magnitude compared to the unfilled PA6.

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Accepted/In Press date: 2 June 2015
Published date: 2 June 2015

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 413275
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/413275
ISSN: 2046-2069
PURE UUID: 21dc0473-db9a-41d2-aeb8-9aa7f0fbc864
ORCID for A. R. Hamilton: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4627-849X

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Date deposited: 18 Aug 2017 16:31
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 04:30

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Contributors

Author: B. Mayoral
Author: E. Harkin-Jones
Author: P. Noorunnisa Khanam
Author: M. A. Almaadeed
Author: M. Ouederni
Author: A. R. Hamilton ORCID iD
Author: D. Sun

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