Effect of graphene content on thermal degradation of PTFE

In this work we report on the effect of graphene nanoplatelet inclusion on the thermal degradation of polytetrafuoroethylene (PTFE) in nitrogen. PTFE/graphene nanocomposites, containing up to 4 vol% graphene were produced by solution-assisted blending followed by sintering. Decomposition parameters were determined by direct fitting of the Sestak-Berggren equation to the experimental data. It was found that the activation energy of thermal decomposition increased up to as much as 20% and was practically independent of the graphene content in the studied PTFE/graphene nanocomposites. This was attributed to the tortuosity of the graphene layers hampering the diffusion of the gaseous decomposition products.