Tensile, rheological and morphological characterizations of multi-walled carbon nanotube/polypropylene composites prepared by microinjection and compression molding
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Gulstan S. Ezat
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Adrian L. Kelly
Abstract
Polypropylene (PP) reinforced with 2 and 4 wt% of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT) were melt-blended in twin screw extruder and then molded by compression or micromolding process. The impact of injection speed on the surface morphology, rheological and tensile characteristics was investigated by using a scanning electron microscope, parallel plate rheometry, and tensiometry. Results showed that the tensile properties of micro-molded specimens were remarkably higher than those of the compression molded sheets. Compared to compression molded sheets, micromolded specimens demonstrated up to 40 and 244% higher tensile stiffness and yield strength, respectively, most likely due to the alignment of polymer chain segments in the flow direction induced during the micromolding process. It was observed that the fast filling speed caused a drop in the tensile properties of the nanocomposites and polymer. Rheological examination revealed that the presence of a rheological percolation network in the nanocomposites produced by micromolding and the fast injection speed was beneficial for establishing the percolated network. Morphological examination revealed that the size of nanotube agglomerations that appeared in micromolded specimens was up to five times smaller than in compression molded sheets and the agglomeration size decreased with the increase of the injection speed.
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Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.
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Research funding: This work was supported by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research-Kurdistan Regional Government.
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Declaration of conflicting interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest concerning the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Data availability statement: Raw data were generated at (University of Bradford/United Kingdom). Derived data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author [GS Ezat] on request.
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Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this article.
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Process parameter optimization for Fused Filament Fabrication additive manufacturing of PLA/PHA biodegradable polymer blend
- Preparation and application of carbon black-filled rubber composite modified with a multi-functional silane coupling agent
- Non-isothermal viscoelastic melt spinning with stress-induced crystallization: numerical simulation and parametric analysis
- Effect of the amount of oxazoline compatibilizer on the mechanical properties of liquid crystalline polymer/polypropylene blends
- Tensile, rheological and morphological characterizations of multi-walled carbon nanotube/polypropylene composites prepared by microinjection and compression molding
- Modification of self-reinforced composites (SRCs) via film stacking process
- Study of distributive mixing in a journal bearing flow geometry
- Synthesis and characterization of wood flour modified by graphene oxide for reinforcement applications
- Antifouling improvement of a polyacrylonitrile membrane blended with an amphiphilic copolymer
- Exploring the applicability of a simplified fully coupled flow/orientation algorithm developed for polymer composites extrusion deposition additive manufacturing
- Understanding softening of amorphous materials for FFF applications
- News
- PPS News
