New hybrid nano additives for thermoplastic compounding: CVD grown carbon fiber on graphene

Nano additives have unique characteristics widely used in high technology applications due to their ultrahigh mechanical and thermal properties. They are not preferred in price sensitive sectors especially in automotive applications because of their high cost. On the other hand, there is a growing interest to use graphene as a reinforcing agent in composite production. At this point, graphene platelet (GNP) produced from the recycle source was used as a template for carbon nanofiber production by using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique to overcome commercialization barrier. This bicomponent and novel structure is a good candidate to be used as a reinforcing agent in compound formulations. This produced hybrid additive was dispersed in thermoplastic resin by thermokinetic mixer to get homogeneous dispersion and provide strong interfacial interactions. In the current work, the outstanding properties of graphene with carbon fibers were combined into one type structure. With the further research, the number of graphene layer were adjusted in this hybrid structure to bring a new insight in graphene and its composite applications. After the fabrication of graphene and carbon fiber-based reinforcements with different graphene sources, mechanically and thermally improved Polyamide 6.6 were developed at very low loadings by a thermokinetic high shear mixer. This developed technology will utilize an innovation to produce advanced thermoplastic prepregs including graphene and its hybrid additives with high mechanical properties and increased recycling degree by decreasing manufacturing costs.