Chuanjie Fan

Maintenance of highly interfacial shear strength by diblock copolymer between carbon fiber and epoxy resin in hostile environment

The environmental resistance properties of carbon fiber (CF), with various surface modifications, reinforcing epoxy resin composites have been studied by a microbond test. The results of cooling–heating cycling between −40 and 95 °C indicate that the introduction of the flexible poly(n-butyl acrylate) (PnBA) blocks into the interface can effectively decrease the interfacial degradation rate, induced by interfacial thermal stress. After 50 cooling–heating cycles, the interfacial shear strength between CF and epoxy resin was still as high as 32.69 ± 2.13 MPa. The results of hygrothermal treatment by immersing the composites in hot water show that assembly morphology of the diblock copolymer hydroxyl-terminated poly(n-butyl acrylate-b-glycidyl methacrylate) (OH-PnBA-b-GMA) at the interface can decrease the interfacial water absorption and thus increase the hygrothermal resistance of the composite. Besides, the length of PnBA block in the diblock copolymer influenced the interfacial properties of the composite in a hygrothermal environment.

The effect of surface modification on the properties of sisal fiber and improvement of interfacial adhesion in sisal/starch composites induced by starch nanocrystals

Abstract A facile approach was utilized to introduce starch nanocrystals (SNCs) onto sisal fiber (SF) to improve the interfacial adhesion between SF and starch. For this, fibers were treated with alkali and then subjected to cold plasma treatment to increase the accessibility with SNCs, which was confirmed through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). It was found that due to the influence of cold plasma treatment, new functional groups were introduced onto SF. The surface characteristics of SF were examined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The observed results suggested that SNCs were successfully distributed onto SF. Tensile strength and interfacial shear strength of fibers treated under different conditions were calculated and compared through a two-parameter Weibull model. The highest interfacial shear strength of 3.05 MPa was obtained by Alkali-300 W-SNCs, which indicated an increase of 80.6% than untreated SF. It has also been proved that the starch nanocrystals produced hydrogen bonding and physical interlocking between sisal fiber and starch. Notably, the outcome of this investigation indicates that SNCs may be applied for the fabrication of high performance, environmentally friendly sisal/starch composites for a range of technological applications.

Exploring Microstructures and Interphase Properties of Surface- Grafted Diblock Copolymers in a Homopolymer Melt by Self-Consistent Field Theory Simulations

Polymeric self-consistent field theory is used to investigate microstructures and interphase properties of diblock copolymers grafted onto solid surfaces in a homopolymer melt. The calculations show that the grafted diblock copolymers can self-assemble into hemispherical microstructures at low grafting densities of the diblock copolymers. The morphology transforms into hemicylinder-like and sandwich-like lamellar microstructures with an increase in the chain-grafting density. The effective thickness of the grafted block layer and the interphase width between the homopolymer melt and the grafted copolymers strongly depend on the physicochemical parameters of the system, such as the composition of the grafted copolymer, the chemical incompatibility between the different components, the length ratio of grafted copolymer to homopolymer, and the grafting density of the diblock copolymers. In addition, the above computational results of microphase-separated structures and interphase properties are qualitatively compared with our previous experimental observations. The comparison indicates that our theoretical results not only reproduce the general feature of the experimental observations, but also elucidate the internal structural information and complement the findings in the region of high grafting densities of diblock copolymers.