Cure behavior of epoxy/graphene oxide nanocomposites

Since the final properties of graphene-based nanocomposites is entirely dependent on how the filler particles are distributed and molecular crosslink networks are formed, the relationship between the dispersibility of particles and curing kinetics of epoxy resin was studied in the current study. To this end, grapheme oxide was modified using two aliphatic amine modifiers having the same structure but different chain lengths in order to induce various levels of dispersibility, which were confirmed via SEM micrographs. Moreover, DSC results showed that the presence of unmodified filler within the epoxy resin reduces the onset temperature of curing, the exotherm temperature and also the total heat of curing reaction