Functionalization and reduction of graphene oxide with p-phenylene diamine for electrically conductive and thermally stable polystyrene composites

• Main Authors: Ma, Hui-Ling, Zhang, Hao-Bin, Hu, Qi-Hui, Li, Wen-Juan, Jiang, Zhi-Guo, Yu, Zhong-Zhen, Dasari, Aravind
• Other Authors: School of Materials Science & Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/96445; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/10272
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

A facile and efficient approach was developed to simultaneously functionalize and reduce graphene oxide (GO) with p-phenylene diamine (PPD) by simple refluxing. This was possible by the nucleophilic substitution reaction of epoxide groups of GO with amine groups of PPD aided by NH3 solution. As a consequence, electrical conductivity of GO-PPD increased to 2.1 × 102 S/m, which was nearly 9 orders of magnitude higher than that of GO. Additionally, after the incorporation of GO-PPD in polystyrene (PS), the composites exhibited a sharp transition from electrically insulating to conducting behavior with a low percolation threshold of 0.34 vol %, which was attributed to the improved dispersion and the reduction of GO-PPD. Thermal stability of the PS/GO-PPD composite was also 8 °C higher than that of PS.