Enhancing mechanical performances of polystyrene composites via constructing carbon nanotube/graphene oxide aerogel and hot pressing

Mixture of styrene and initiator polymerized in situ in three-dimensional graphene oxide (GO)/carbon nanotube (CNT) aerogel (GOCA) obtained via modified Hummers' method and freeze-drying method to form GOCA/ polystyrene (GOCA/PS) nanocomposites. After heating processing, the prepared GOCA/PS nanocomposite sheets exhibited excellent mechanical properties. Results revealed that GOCA was well dispersed and embedded into the PS matrix. When the mass ratio of GO to CNT was 7.3 and the total loading of GOCA was 1.02 wt%, tensile, flexural, compressive, and impact strengths were greatly improved (increased by 64.05%, 54.7%, 107.38%, and 66.5%, respectively, compared with neat PS). Meanwhile, the prepared GOCA/PS nanocomposites presented great microhardness of similar to 265 MPa and compressive modulus of similar to 689 MPa. We believe that these effective methods may provide good idea for designing and investigating reinforced composites.