Preparation of thermally reduced graphene oxide and the influence of its reduction temperature on the thermal, mechanical, flame retardant performances of PS nanocomposites

In this article, we investigated the influence of thermally reduced graphene oxides (TGOs) at different reduction temperatures on the thermal, mechanical and flame retardant performances of polystyrene (PS). The results indicated that disordered expanded layer structure can be obtained as the reduction temperature increases from 200 to 500 and 800 °C (the resulted composites are named as PS/TGO2, PS/TGO5 and PS/GTO8, respectively), which could lead to better dispersion of TGO sheets in PS matrix. Dynamic mechanical thermal analysis showed that both the storage modulus and Tg of PS/TGO5 and PS/TGO8 nanocomposites are significantly improved compared with that of neat PS. Noticeable improvement in flame retardant performance were achieved with the addition of TGO5 and TGO8, particularly TGO8, due to the removal of the functional oxygen groups from GO and the barrier effect of intumescent and loosely structure of char layers.