The effect of surface modification of glass fiber on the performance of poly(lactic acid) composites: Graphene oxide vs. silane coupling agents

• Published in: Applied surface science Vol. 435; pp. 1046 - 1056
• Main Authors: Jing, Mengfan, Che, Junjin, Xu, Shuman, Liu, Zhenwei, Fu, Qiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 30-03-2018
• Subjects: Crystallization; Glass fiber; Mechanical; Poly(lactic acid); Surface modification; Thermomechanical; Surface modification; Poly(lactic acid); Glass fiber; Crystallization; Mechanical; Thermomechanical
• ISSN: 0169-4332; 1873-5584
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2017.11.134

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•Varying surface modification of GF can change the properties of PLA/GF composites.•GF-GO could greatly enhance the crystallization process of the PLA matrix.•PLA/GF-S exhibits the best mechanical properties than other composites.•The thermomechanical behavior is greatly affected by the matrix crystallinity.•The enhancement effect comes from the crystallinity, the interfacial interaction and the fiber length.
In this work, a comparison study was carried out to investigate the efficacy of glass fiber (GF) in reinforcing poly(lactic acid) (PLA) by using traditional silane coupling agents (GF-S) and novel graphene oxide (GF-GO) as surface modifiers. The crystallization behavior of the PLA matrix was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry. The mechanical performances and the thermomechanical properties of the composites were evaluated by uniaxial tensile testing and dynamic mechanical analysis, respectively. For neat GF without any treatment, the poor interfacial adhesion and the sharp shortening of the GF length result in the relatively poor mechanical performances of PLA/GF composites. However, the incorporation of GF-S significantly improves the mechanical strength and keeps relatively good toughness of the composites, while GF-GO exhibits excellent nucleation ability for PLA and could moderately increase the modulus of the composites. The thermomechanical properties of the composites are improved markedly resulting from the crystallinity increase. The different surface modification of glass fiber influences the crystallinity of matrix, the interfacial interaction and the length of fiber, which altogether affect the mechanical performances of the prepared PLA/GF composites.