Variation of mechanical and thermal properties in sustainable graphene oxide/epoxy composites

In this work, the functional graphene oxide (bGO) was facilely synthesized through a grafted reaction between graphene oxide (GO) and bio-based bis-furan di-epoxide (BFDE). The structure of bGO was confirmed by FTIR spectra and Raman spectra. The properties of polymer composite materials depend on the distribution of the nanofiller in the matrix and due to the presence of polymer chains our bGO sheets exhibit a better dispersibility in solvents and polymer matrix, which provides a potential opportunity for the preparation of BFDE composites with excellent performance. Bio-based BFDE composites containing 0.05–0.5 wt.% of bGO exhibit superior mechanical and thermal properties. The addition of just 0.5 wt% such bGO to an BFDE causes 80%, 49%, 21%, 69% and 97% enhancement in tensile strength, flexural strength, flexural modulus, critical stress intensity factor and critical strain energy release rate, respectively. The thermal decomposition temperature T(d) of bGO/BFDE composites was increased about ~17 °C compared to blank BFDE sample. In addition, we found that introducing unmodified GO to epoxy matrix lead to an insignificant increase of the thermal property of the resulting GO/BFDE composites. The enhanced mechanical properties and thermal properties of bGO/BFDE composites could be attributed to strong interfacial interactions and high affinity between bGO and epoxy matrix.