1 research outputs found
Ecofriendly Fabrication of Modified Graphene Oxide Latex Nanocomposites with High Oxygen Barrier Performance
Large-scale industrial applications
of barrier films and coatings
that prevent permeation of degradative gases and moisture call for
the development of cost-efficient and ecofriendly polymer nanocomposites.
Herein, we report the facile fabrication of latex nanocomposites (LNCs)
by incorporating surface-modified graphene oxide (mGO) at various
loadings (0.025–1.2 wt %) into a styrene-acrylic latex using
water as the processing solvent. LNCs fabricated with mGO exhibited
significant reductions (up to 67%) in water vapor sorption, resulting
in greater environmental stability when compared to LNCs fabricated
with equivalent loading of hydrophilic, unmodified GO. The assembly
and coalescence of the exfoliated latex/mGO dispersions during the
film formation process produced highly dispersed and well-ordered
mGO domains with high aspect ratios, where alignment and overlap of
the mGO domains improved with increasing mGO content. The addition
of only 0.7 vol % (1.2 wt %) mGO led to an 84% decrease (relative
to the neat polymer latex film) in oxygen permeability of the LNC
films, an excellent barrier performance attributed to the observed
LNC film morphologies. This work enables ecofriendly development of
mechanically flexible mGO/LNC films with superior barrier properties
for many industrial applications including protective coatings, food
packaging, and biomedical products