poly(amidoamine)-grafted graphene oxide/epoxy nanocomposite: thermal/ mechanical characteristics and viscoelastic properties

As the most crucial choice in the heavy-duty protective coating industry, epoxy-based coatings suffer from insufficient toughness and impermeableness. so in this study, a reliable method that is, in turn, easy to be scaled up is designed and proposed. through this method, a significantly toughened and mechanically improved epoxy nanocomposite film is suggested. this film is based on poly(amidoamine)-grafted (pamam) graphene oxide (go). go is synthesized and then modified through two consecutive steps; first, silanegrafted go producing sigo and second polyamidoamine (pamam)-grafted sigo leading to hbpsigo. ft-ir, tga, and xrd results confirm a successful functionalization of the go flakes. dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (dmta) results reveal that the nanocomposite film based on hbpsigo possesses higher storage modulus (50 %), elevated glass transition temperature (18 %), and higher cross-linking density (237 %) compared to unfilled epoxy. according to tensile testing, hbpsigo nanocomposite shows an increment in work of fracture (148%), elongation at break (52 %), and maximum stress (68 %) in comparison with neat epoxy.