Influence of micro- and nano-fillers on chemico-physical properties of epoxy-based materials

In the marine field epoxy-based materials are currently used to insulate the surface of the vessels, improve their surface finish and prepare it for the next painting treatments. A wide variety of fillers have been added to the epoxy resins in order to achieve an improvement of some properties, such as lightness, thermical insulation, hardness/tenderness of the surface.In this article new hollow glass microspheres and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were added to an epoxy matrix to obtain some new, different epoxy composites to compare with a traditional one. Their density, hardness, tensile strength and flexural strength were studied.The different hollow glass microspheres-filled composites showed a wide range of mechanical behaviour. On the other hand, the mechanical properties of the CNTs-filled composites were slightly improved when compared to those of the control material.