Preparation and Mechanical Properties of Cathodic Exfoliation Graphene Reinforced Epoxy Resin Composites

Cathodic exfoliation graphene (GN) reinforced epoxy resin (EP) composite materials were prepared by the solution blending method. Elemental analysis (EA), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Raman spectra (Raman), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron spectroscopy (SEM) results demonstrate that GN nanosheets are well exfoliated in organic solvents and dispersed in EP. The tensile and flexural properties of the composite materials were tested using a universal tensile machine. Results showed that the added GN can significantly improve the tensile and flexural properties of composites. When the amount of GN loading is 1.0 wt %, the tensile strength, elongation at break, flexural strength and flexural modulus of GN/EP composite materials can be up to 96.77 MPa, 5.61%, 115.38 MPa, and 3507.8 MPa, respectively. The possible mechanism is that good interfacial bonding between the GN and matrix is account for the observed improvements in tensile and flexural properties.