Improving the mechanical, thermal, dielectric and flame retardancy properties of cyanate ester with the encapsulated epoxy resin-penetrated aligned carbon nanotube bundle

摘要

Epoxy resins-penetrated aligned carbon nanotube bundles (ACNTB) microcapsules (ACNTB@EP MCs) and pristine ACNTB with porous structure were introduced into thermosetting cyanate ester (CE) resins to prepare high performance CE composites. Owing to the epoxy resins-penetrated ACNTB with significantly decreased defects and the chemical interaction at the interface of MCs and CE resin, CE with appropriated MCs shows better comprehensive performance than CE/ACNTB composite when the two composites contain the same amount of ACNTB. CE with 5 wt% MCs (CE/5MCs) shows the optimal flexural strength, impact resistance and tensile strength, which are 59%, 45% and 32% higher than that of CE, respectively. CE with 15 wt% MCs (CE/15MCs) shows 24% higher in thermal conductivity, 35.1% lower in PHRR value than CE. CE/15MCs also exhibits the highest dielectric constant of 12.8-16.6 and a low dielectric loss of 0.022-0.066. The attractive performances of CE/MCs composites prove that the ACNTB@EP MCs are multi-functional fillers, which can simultaneously act as toughening agent, reinforcement while improving the thermal stability, flame retardancy and dielectric properties for high temperature thermosetting resins. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.