Issue 63, 2015

Influence of hollow carbon microspheres of micro and nano-scale on the physical and mechanical properties of epoxy syntactic foams

Abstract

Epoxy syntactic foams were prepared by introducing hollow carbon microspheres (HCMs) of micro and nano-scale. Based on the surface structure analysis of the HCMs, the effects of HCM content and particle size on the mechanical properties, dimensional stability, thermal conductivity, thermal stability and dielectric properties of the epoxy foam were investigated. The density of the epoxy foam gradually declined with the increase of the micro-scale HCM (M-HCM) content up to 9 wt%, and the compression strength of the epoxy foam just decreased slightly, while the compression modulus and flexural modulus were enhanced continuously. When 0.5 wt% and 1 wt% of HCMs were involved, the reinforcing effect of nano-scale HCMs (N-HCMs) was superior to the M-HCMs. The compression strength of the N-HCM/epoxy foams was almost equivalent to the neat epoxy, while the flexural strength of the N-HCM samples exhibited an obvious superiority. The dimensional stability and thermal stability of the epoxy foams were also improved with the addition of HCMs. Besides, the introduction of the M-HCMs and N-HCMs gave rise to different effects on the thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity and dielectric constant of the resulting epoxy foams due to the diversity in the interfacial interactions and microstructure. These results indicate that the HCM/epoxy syntactic foams show potential for application in multifunctional materials that are lightweight and of high rigidity.

Graphical abstract: Influence of hollow carbon microspheres of micro and nano-scale on the physical and mechanical properties of epoxy syntactic foams

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
20 Apr 2015
Accepted
27 May 2015
First published
29 May 2015

RSC Adv., 2015,5, 50919-50928

Author version available

Influence of hollow carbon microspheres of micro and nano-scale on the physical and mechanical properties of epoxy syntactic foams

X. Li, M. Zhu, X. Tang, Q. Zhang, X. Yang and G. Sui, RSC Adv., 2015, 5, 50919 DOI: 10.1039/C5RA07112G

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements