Preparation and Rheology of Isocyanate Functionalized Graphene Oxide/Thermoplastic Polyurethane Elastomer Nanocomposites

Using monomer-functionalized nanofiller to prepare polymeric nanocomposites is a promising strategy toward achieving enhanced performance. In this study toluene-2,4-diisocyanate (TDI), one of the monomers used for synthesizing polyurethane, was covalently functionalized on graphene oxide (GO) and then the functionalized GO (TDI-GO) was polymerized with polycaprolactone diol (PCL) via in-situ polymerization, leading to chemically linked polyurethane nanocomposites through the covalent bonds between the isocyanate groups on GO and the hydroxyl-terminated PCL. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and dispersion experiments of the nanofillers demonstrated that the TDI was successfully grafted onto the GO. The rheological properties were investigated to establish the structure-property relationships of the nanocomposites. The storage moduli (G’), loss moduli (G”) and complex viscosity (η*) of the samples increased monotonically with TDI-GO content, which is attributed to the strong polymer-filler interactions and the effective dispersion of the nanofillers. Additionally, the tan δ variation with frequency, the intersection of G’ and G”, Han plots, van Gurp-Palmen plots and Cole-Cole plots all showed that the incorporation of TDI-GO decreased the degree of microphase separation and improved the elastic properties of the nanocomposites. We suggest this is related to the enhanced interactions between the polymer and nanofillers, which strongly restricted the mobility and relaxation of the polymer chains.