Distortion of Chain Conformation and Reduced Entanglement in Polymer–Graphene Oxide Nanocomposites

Weir, M.P.; Johnson, D.W.; Boothroyd, S.C.; Savage, R.C.; Thompson, R.L.; King, S.M.; Rogers, S.E.; Coleman, K.S.; Clarke, N.

doi:10.1021/acsmacrolett.6b00100

Distortion of Chain Conformation and Reduced Entanglement in Polymer–Graphene Oxide Nanocomposites

Weir, M.P.; Johnson, D.W.; Boothroyd, S.C.; Savage, R.C.; Thompson, R.L.; King, S.M.; Rogers, S.E.; Coleman, K.S.; Clarke, N.

Authors

M.P. Weir

D.W. Johnson

S.C. Boothroyd

R.C. Savage

Dr Richard Thompson r.l.thompson@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor

S.M. King

S.E. Rogers

Professor Karl Coleman k.s.coleman@durham.ac.uk
Academic Visitor

N. Clarke

Abstract

We study the conformations of polymer chains in polymer–graphene oxide nanocomposites. We show that the chains have a reduced radius of gyration that is consistent with confinement at a solid interface in the melt, as is expected for well-dispersed, high aspect ratio nanoparticles that are much larger than the polymer coil size. We show that confinement of the polymer chains causes a corresponding reduction in interchain entanglements, and we calculate a contribution to the plateau modulus from the distorted polymer network via a simple scaling argument. Our results are a significant step forward in understanding how two-dimensional nanoparticles affect global material properties at low loadings.

Citation

Weir, M., Johnson, D., Boothroyd, S., Savage, R., Thompson, R., King, S., …Clarke, N. (2016). Distortion of Chain Conformation and Reduced Entanglement in Polymer–Graphene Oxide Nanocomposites. ACS Macro Letters, 5(4), 430-434. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsmacrolett.6b00100

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Mar 8, 2016
Online Publication Date	Mar 9, 2016
Publication Date	Mar 9, 2016
Deposit Date	Mar 15, 2016
Publicly Available Date	Mar 9, 2017
Journal	ACS Macro Letters
Publisher	American Chemical Society
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	5
Issue	4
Pages	430-434
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1021/acsmacrolett.6b00100

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