Influence of synthesis parameters on mechanical properties of nanocomposite PMMA-MXene

In this paper, the influence of solvents and reinforcement processing methods on the mechanical properties of nanocomposite poly-(methyl methacrylate) PMMA-Ti3C2Tx MXene was investigated. A weight fraction of reinforcement was 1% and two types of solvents were used for sample preparation: dimethylformamide (DMF) and acetone (Ac). Deionized water and DMF were used to delaminate the MXene. An additional peak at 1675 cm-1 was observed on the FTIR spectra of the obtained samples, which indicates that some amount of DMF remained in the material after drying. The results of microindentation show that samples where MXene was delaminated in deionized water and PMMA dissolved in acetone had a 74.46% higher reduced modulus of elasticity, which is supported by SEM images where better dispersion of MXenes is observed.