Preparation and mechanical properties of Ni/RGO reinforced epoxy resin composites

The graphene/nanonickel composites(Ni/RGO) were prepared by liquid phase reduction method, and the graphene/nanonickel epoxy composites(Ni/RGO/EP) were prepared by in-situ polymerization method. The glass transition temperature (Tg) of the modified epoxy resin was increased by 19°C compared to EP with 2.1 wt% Ni/RGO loading. The tensile strength and hardness increased by 65% and 18%, the impact strength is increased by 10.053 KJ·m −2 compared to EP, and the shear strength reaches 34.78 MPa for the Ni/RGO/EP with 1.7 wt% Ni/RGO loading. It can be seen, that the addition of Ni/RGO greatly improves the heat resistance and mechanical properties of epoxy resin when the Ni/RGO are evenly dispersed into the epoxy resin by emulsion dispersion method.