Enhancing mechanical performances of polystyrene composites via constructing carbon nanotube/graphene oxide aerogel and hot pressing

Abstract Mixture of styrene and initiator polymerized in situ in three-dimensional graphene oxide (GO)/carbon nanotube (CNT) aerogel (GOCA) obtained via modified Hummers' method and freeze-drying method to form GOCA/polystyrene (GOCA/PS) nanocomposites. After heating processing, the prepared GOCA/PS nanocomposite sheets exhibited excellent mechanical properties. Results revealed that GOCA was well dispersed and embedded into the PS matrix. When the mass ratio of GO to CNT was 7:3 and the total loading of GOCA was 1.02 wt%, tensile, flexural, compressive, and impact strengths were greatly improved (increased by 64.05%, 54.7%, 107.38%, and 66.5%, respectively, compared with neat PS). Meanwhile, the prepared GOCA/PS nanocomposites presented great microhardness of ~265 MPa and compressive modulus of ~689 MPa. We believe that these effective methods may provide good idea for designing and investigating reinforced composites.