The influence of carbon spheres on thermal and mechanical properties of epoxy composites

In order to improve the properties of epoxy resion, a reinforcement addictive of carbon spheres (CSs) was successfully synthesized by hydrothermal methods and CSs/Epoxy composite was prepared using in-situ polymerization technique. The morphology and structure of CSs and CSs/Epoxy composites were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results show that CSs distributed homogeneously in epoxy matrix and the integrating state of interface between CSs and epoxy is good. TGA and DMA analysis showed that the thermal stability of CSs/Epoxy composite in air and the glass transition temperature (T_g) increased with the addition of CSs. DMA results show that the creep recovery property also improved. Additionally. The impact fracture strength of EP composites increased after the addition of CSs compared to pure EP, it means the toughness of epoxy improved effectively, which attribute to the effective dissipation of the crash energy. Finally, the mechanism for the improvement of mechanical properties by the CSs is also discussed.