Improvement of interfacial interaction between poly(arylene sulfide sulfone) and carbon fiber via molecular chain grafting

An effective method for improving interfacial properties between carbon fiber and poly(arylene sulfide sulfone) (PASS) via grafting amine containing PASS (NH2-PASS) chains onto carbon fiber surface is reported here. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) results confirmed the successful grafting of molecular chains and obvious features including thin polymer layer and/or resin pitch were observed on the scanning electronic micrograph of carbon fiber surface. The contact angle obviously changed with the modification step of carbon fiber. And the obvious interface of composites can be observed on the atomic force micro-scopy (AFM). In addition, the effect of catalyst species and molecular weight of NH2-PASS chain on the interfacial properties were also studied. The interfacial shear test and macroscopic mechanical test show that grafting low-molecular-weight NH2-PASS onto carbon fiber with hexafluorophosphate azabenzotriazole tetramethyl uranium (HATU) ([email protected]) as catalyst enhance the interfacial properties and composite performance to the largest extent. The interfacial shear strength (IFSS) and interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) of [email protected] reinforced PASS ([email protected]/PASS) increased significantly by 28.3% and 71.8% respectively.