Polymers and Polymer Composites

Poly(glycidyl methacrylate) grafted to carbon fiber surface by RAFT polymerization for enhancing interface adhesion and mechanical properties of carbon fiber/epoxy composites

January 1, 2017 By: Daosong Lan; Lei Xiong; Hongtao Wanyan; Yiming Yuan; Qian Fan; Xuekai Zeng; Yonglong Chen; Zhiyuan Cao Research article

Title: Poly(glycidyl methacrylate) grafted to carbon fiber surface by RAFT polymerization for enhancing interface adhesion and mechanical properties of carbon fiber/epoxy composites
Page Range: p.113-118
Author(s): Daosong Lan; Lei Xiong; Hongtao Wanyan; Yiming Yuan; Qian Fan; Xuekai Zeng; Yonglong Chen; Zhiyuan Cao
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Journal: Polymers and Polymer Composites
Issue Year: ppc
Volume: 25
Issue No: No.1

Abstract
In this study, we present a novel approach to graft a large number of poly(glycidyl methacrylate) (PGMA) chains onto the carbon fibre (CF) surface through reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerisation. Characterisation results of FT-IR, XPS and TGA demonstrated that PGMA was covalently combined with carbon fibres. The CF/epoxy composites were obtained by addition of pristine CF and CF functionalised with poly(glycidyl methacrylate) (CF-PGMA) into epoxy resin. Experiment results revealed that the grafting of PGMA chains on the CF surface could increase significantly roughness and number of active groups of CF, which enhanced interface and mechanical properties of the composites. The compression strength, tensile strength, flexural strength and interfacial shear strength (IFSS) of CF-PGMA/epoxy composites are enhanced by at least 63.1%, 37.9% 55.6% and 122.5%, respectively, compared to pristine carbon fibre/epoxy composites. This enhancement indicates that surface modification of the carbon fibres by RAFT technique is a potential method to preparing CF-reinforced polymer matrix composites with excellent mechanical properties. 18 Refs.


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