Graphene oxide grafted with polydimethylsiloxane modified polyurethane

Abstract

Abstract In order to improve the dispersion of graphene oxide (GO) in polymers, we synthesized polyurethane (PU) chains with long polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) chains as the “soft segment” and hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) as the “hard segment”, then the PU chains were grafted onto GO. The results of compatibility in solvents and TEM images of composites indicated that the modified GO (GO‐PU) would present two different shapes in non‐polar and polar solvents (cocoon‐like shape and stretched shape, respectively). The two shapes made it have a good dispersion in both non‐polar and polar polymers, it was expected to be applied in both non‐polar and polar polymer matrixes. This provided a method for covalent modification of GO.

Keywords

• covalent modification
• dispersion
• graphene oxide
• polyurethane