A review of the mechanical and thermal properties of graphene and its hybrid polymer nanocomposites for structural applications

In the present review, the recent progress in describing the intricacies of mechanical and thermal properties of all types of graphene- and modified graphene-based polymer nanocomposites has been comprehensively examined. The effectiveness of microscopy bouquet for the intrinsic characterization of graphene family and their composites was clearly demonstrated in this research. Furthermore, the utility of the dynamic mechanical analysis and thermo-gravimetric analysis employed for thermal characterization that has been reported by various researchers was exhaustively analyzed in this paper. This research primarily focused on the analyses of several good articles concerned with hybrid graphene composites and the synergetic effect of graphene with other nanofiller to assess its effect on the mechanical properties of its corresponding composites. Such systematic analysis of previous literatures imparted a direction to the researchers about the solution of improved interfacial properties as well as the enhanced dispersion into the vicinity of the matrix. This current research has suggested that the presence of the graphene filler even at very low loadings has shown considerable improvement in the overall mechanical properties of graphene. Further studies to optimize the value of the filler need to be addressed in order to gain complete understanding of the properties of graphene. The potential applications, current challenges, and future perspectives pertaining to these nanocomposites were elaborately discussed in the current study with regard to the multi-scale capabilities and promising developments of the graphene-family-based nanocomposites materials.