Effects of carbon nanofillers on enhancement of polymer composites

Different carbon nanofillers derived from carbon nanotubes and graphite were fabricated and characterized to investigate their effects on enhancement of polymer composites. It could be concluded that a better enhancement effect would be achieved when the nanofillers possessed a higher O/C ratio and more wrinkled surface. As another key factor affecting the mechanical properties of composites, the dispersion status of nanofillers in matrix was quantitatively characterized by measuring the relative transmittance (RT) of the suspension. The RT curve varying with time was fitted by a sigmoidal growth function and a key parameter was calculated to discribe the dispersibility of the nanofillers. It was found that the dispersibility of nanofillers was approximately proportional to the enhancement effect on the resulted composites. So, the mechanical properties of the composites could be estimated by investigating the dispersibility of nanofillers in matrix. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4755806]