Graphene oxide (GO) is an ideal additive for polymeric nanobased composite fibers. To improve the interfacial bonding and thermal stability of GO and PP composite fibers, adding grafted maleic anhydride polypropylene (PP-g-MAH) as a compatibilizer is a simple and effective approach.

In this paper, PP/MAH/GO-x composites containing 0.0~0.5 wt% GO were prepared by melt blending method using PP as matrix, GO as reinforcement and PP-g-MAH as compatibilizer, (x represents the content of GO) to investigate the interfacial bonding properties, thermal properties, mechanical properties and morphological characteristics of the composites.

▲Figure 1 shows the SEM images of the low-temperature sections of the three fibers

Figure 1a shows the SEM image of pure PP with a relatively rough fracture interface, Figure 1b shows the SEM image of PP/GO with a smooth section, which indicates the poor compatibility between PP and GO and the appearance of GO agglomerates, and Figure 1c shows the SEM image of PP/MAH/GO-3 with a very rough interface, which indicates that the compatibility is greatly improved compared with PP/GO.

▲Figure 2 shows the crystallization temperature curves of the three fibers

It can be seen from Fig. 2 that the crystallization temperature decreases after adding the compatibilizer compared with pure PP, which is because PP-g-MAH makes the compatibility between PP and GO increase, which makes the crystallization temperature decrease and is not easy to crystallize; while adding only GO will nucleate for the nucleation ability of PP and crystallize more easily.