Enhanced wear resistance of ultra‐high molecular weight polyethylene fibers by modified‐graphite oxide

Abstract A simple and feasible method to enhance the wear resistance of ultra‐high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) fibers was reported. The graphite oxide (GO) prepared using improved Hummer's method was surface modified with hexadecylamine to improve its compatibility with UHMWPE. Combined with well‐dispersion of modified‐GO (m‐GO) in dichloromethane and the fact that the viscosity of UHMWPE suspension can be decreased by dichloromethane, the well dispersed m‐GO/dichloromethane was added into UHMWPE suspension to improve m‐GO dispersion in UHMWPE fibers. Finally, UHMWPE fibers with different m‐GO concentration were prepared using gel spinning technology. The effect of m‐GO concentration on the structure and properties of modified UHMWPE fibers were investigated. The results indicated that the melting temperature and crystallinity of m‐GO modified UHMWPE fibers increased with increasing of m‐GO concentration, while the fiber's crystal sizes and orientation increased, thus the tensile strength of m‐GO modified UHMWPE fibers remained almost undamaged. The introduction of m‐GO is beneficial to the formation of smooth transfer film on fiber's surface, which enhanced the self‐lubrication of UHMWPE fibers. Compared with pure UHMWPE fiber, the UHMWPE fiber containing 1.5 wt% m‐GO had enhanced wear resistance by 55.4% and still maintained high tensile strength of 29.98 cN dtex −1 .