Functionalised silica/epoxy nanocomposites with enhanced fracture toughness for large-scale applications

Abstract

A small amount of commercial functional nanosilica was mechanically mixed with epoxy to enhance the composite fracture toughness. Nanosilicas with amino and epoxide functional groups show strong interfaces with epoxy, which suppress large aggregations and enhance resin-wettability, hence enhancing the fracture toughness of epoxy composites. Compared with other reports, less nanosilica content was needed to achieve the same fracture toughness values or similar enhancement ratio. Due to their commercial availability, the low-cost of the raw material and simple fabrication method, those nanocomposites have the potential for large-scale applications.