Ultralight Microcellular Polymer-Graphene Nanoplatelet Foams with Enhanced Dielectric Performance

作者：Hamidinejad Mandi; Zhao Biao; Chu Raymond K M; Moghimian Nima; Naguib Hani E; Filleter Tobin^*; Park Chul B^*

来源：ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2018, 10(23): 19987-19998.

DOI：10.1021/acsami.8b03777

• dielectric permittivity
• dielectric loss
• graphene nanoplatelets
• polymer nanocomposites
• physical foaming
• microcellular structure

Dielectric polymer nanocomposites with high dielectric constant (epsilon') and low dielectric loss (tan delta) are extremely desirable in the electronics industry. Percolative polymer-graphene nanoplatelet (GnP) composites have shown great promise as dielectric materials for high-performance capacitors. Herein, an industrially-viable technique for manufacturing a new class of ultralight polymer composite foams using commercial GnPs with excellent dielectric performance is presented. Using this method, the high-density polyethylene (HDPE)-GnPs composites with a microcellular structure were fabricated by melt-mixing. This was followed by supercritical fluid (SCF) treatment and physical foaming in an extrusion process, which added an extra layer of design flexibility. The SCF treatment effectively in situ exfoliated the GnPs in the polymer matrix. Moreover, the generation of a microcellular structure produced numerous parallel-plate nanocapacitors consisting of GnP pairs as electrodes with insulating polymer as nanodielectrics. This significantly increased the real permittivity and decreased the dielectric loss. The ultralight extruded HDPE-1.08 vol % GnP composite foams, with a 0.15 g.cm(-3) density, had an excellent combination of dielectric properties (epsilon' = 77.5, tan (delta = 0.003 at 1 X 10(5) Hz), which were superior to their compression-molded counterparts (epsilon' = 19.9, tan delta = 0.15 and density of = 1.2 g.cm(-3)) and to those reported in the literature. This dramatic improvement resulted from in situ GnP's exfoliation and dispersion, as well as a unique GnP parallel-plate arrangement around the cells. Thus, this facile method provides a scalable method to produce ultralight dielectric polymer nanocomposites, with a microscopically tailored microstructure for use in electronic devices.

• 出版日期2018-6-13