Improving thermal, flame retardant and mechanical properties of epoxy resin via expandable graphite

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 'Department of Polymer Engineering and Color Technology, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran

2 Department of Printing Science and Technology, Institute for Color Science and Technology, Tehran

/amnc.2013.2.6.5

Abstract

In this research, the effect of expandable graphite (EG) incorporated into an epoxy aliphatic amine system was investigated. The epoxy/EG systems were prepared by using 0-4 wt% of EG. The morphological structures of expandable and expanded graphite were studied by scanning electron microscopy. The influence of EG content on the thermal, flame retardant and mechanical properties of epoxy resin was investigated using thermogravimetric analysis, oxygen index test, dynamic mechanical analysis, tensile and  impact tests, TGA results showed that adding EG increases the initial decomposition and residue weights of the composites. It was found that the oxygen index, glass transition temperature and young's modulus of epoxy/ EG systems increase up to 60%, 3% and 50% with increasing EG concentration up to 4%(wt) respectively. On the other hand, maximum value for tensile strength, storage modulus, cross-linking density ,ultimate tensile strain and impact strength were obtained when the concentration of EG was 2wt% in the composite. These characteristics increased up to 30%, 57%, 74%,14% and 25% respectively.

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