Issue 37, 2016, Issue in Progress
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RSC Advances

Epoxy resin reinforced with nanothin polydopamine-coated carbon nanotubes: a study of the interfacial polymer layer thickness

Yang Ling,a   Weizhen Li,*ab   Baoyu Wang,a   Wenjun Gan, ORCID logo *a   Chenhui Zhu,c   Michael A. Bradyc  and  Cheng Wang*c  

* Corresponding authors

a College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai, China
E-mail: liweizhen@sues.edu.cn, wjgan@sues.edu.cn

b State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

c Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
E-mail: cwang2@lbl.gov

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) functionalized by a nanothin poly(dopamine) (PDA) layer were produced by a one-pot, nondestructive approach, with direct polymerization of dopamine on the CNT surface. The thickness of the PDA layer can be well-controlled by the reaction time and the proportion of dopamine, and this thickness is found to be the key factor in controlling the dispersion of CNTs and the extent of the interfacial interactions between the CNT@PDA and epoxy resin. SEM results indicated that the dispersion of CNTs in epoxy was improved significantly by coating a nanothin PDA layer onto the CNT surface. In agreement with this finding, the CNTs functionalized with the thinnest PDA layer provided the best mechanical and thermal properties. This result confirmed that a thinner PDA layer could provide optimized interfacial interactions between the CNT@PDA and epoxy matrix and weaken the self-agglomeration of CNTs, which led to an improved effective stress and heat transfer between the CNTs and the polymer matrix.

Graphical abstract: Epoxy resin reinforced with nanothin polydopamine-coated carbon nanotubes: a study of the interfacial polymer layer thickness

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C5RA26539H
Article type
Paper
Submitted
12 Dec 2015
Accepted
18 Mar 2016
First published
29 Mar 2016

RSC Adv., 2016,6, 31037-31045

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Epoxy resin reinforced with nanothin polydopamine-coated carbon nanotubes: a study of the interfacial polymer layer thickness

Y. Ling, W. Li, B. Wang, W. Gan, C. Zhu, M. A. Brady and C. Wang, RSC Adv., 2016, 6, 31037 DOI: 10.1039/C5RA26539H

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