High-Performance PE/Graphene Composites with Improved Atomic Oxygen Resistance via Synergistic Effect of Graphene Defects and Structure

Abstract High-performance polymer/graphene composites have displayed some potentials for atomic oxygen (AO) resistance in low earth orbit spacecraft. However, such polymer composites have not yet exhibited the desired properties due to the lack of understanding of the protective mechanism. Here, the designed graphene with different kind of defects and structure were successfully synthesized to enhance the polymer, polyethylene (PE) was selected as a model polymer matrix. The theoretical and experimental results revealed that the improved AO resistance originates from synergistic effects of structure defects and exfoliation degree of graphene, where the process of defective graphene binding and stabilizing AO is thermodynamically more favorable, and the higher exfoliation of graphene results in the better dispersion in polymer matrix.Finally, Diameter-Thickness (D/T) was employed as an enhancing descriptor to study the structure-performance relationship of the composites, which is expected to provide the reference to tailor the high-performance polymer composites.