Plasticity control of poly(vinyl alcohol)–graphene oxide nanocomposites

Composite films containing poly(vinyl alcohol) filled with different amounts of graphene oxide (2 and 4 wt%) were prepared by the solution casting technique, and the mechanical properties of the resulting materials were modified with different amounts of glycerol as a plasticizer. Two series of pure poly(vinyl alcohol) and graphene oxide-loaded films with fixed amounts of water were used for modification with glycerol, since water can also serve as a plasticizer for poly(vinyl alcohol). The morphology and physical properties of the plasticized and non-plasticized composites were studied; tensile tests were performed to investigate and compare their mechanical properties. Glycerol addition does not affect the excellent compatibility of the filler with the polymer matrix and uniform distribution of graphene oxide in poly(vinyl alcohol). For poly(vinyl alcohol)/graphene oxide films an increase of the Young's modulus and yield stress was found with an increase of the filler content; the Young's modulus for poly(vinyl alcohol) filled with 4 wt% of graphene oxide is almost two times higher than that of the pure polymer. Simultaneously, a sharp decrease of the elongation at break from 80% for pure PVA to about 5% for the PVA/GO composite with 4 wt% of GO is observed, and the film's brittleness dramatically increases. It was shown that the addition of glycerol to the composite films leads both to the Young's modulus decrease and tensile energy at break increase; here the Young's modulus decreases by 18 times after addition of 20 wt% of glycerol to the poly(vinyl alcohol) film filled with 4 wt% of graphene oxide. Thus, the use of plasticizer results in a significant increase of the ductile properties of graphene oxide filled poly(vinyl alcohol) composite films, and the higher the water content in the composite film, the more drastic the increase of the ductile properties observed.