Safety and reliability are the major challenges to face for the development and acceptance of hydrogen technology. It is therefore crucial to deeply study material compatibility, in particular for tribological components that are directly in contact with hydrogen. Some of the most critical parts are sealing materials that need increased safety requirements. In this study, the fretting behavior of several elastomer materials were evaluated against 316L stainless steel in an air and hydrogen environment up to 10 MPa. Several grades of cross-linked hydrogenated acrylonitrile butadiene (HNBR), acrylonitrile butadiene (NBR) and ethylene propylene diene monomer rubbers (EPDM) were investigated. Furthermore, aging experiments were conducted for 7 days under static conditions in 100 MPa of hydrogen followed by rapid gas decompression. Fretting tests revealed that the wear of these compounds is significantly affected by the hydrogen environment compared to air, especially with NBR grades. After the aging experiment, the friction response of the HNBR grades is characterized by increased adhesion due to elastic deformation, leading to partial slip.

A key application of atomic force microscopy (AFM) is the measurement of physical properties at sub-micrometer resolution. Methods such as force–distance curves (FDCs) or dynamic variants (such as intermodulation AFM (ImAFM)) are able to measure mechanical properties (such as the local stiffness, k_r) of nanoscopic heterogeneous materials. For a complete structure–property correlation, these mechanical measurements are considered to lack the ability to identify the chemical structure of the materials. In this study, the measured attractive force, F_attr, acting between the AFM tip and the sample is shown to be an independent measurement for the local chemical composition and hence a complete structure–property correlation can be obtained. A proof of concept is provided by two model samples comprised of (1) epoxy/polycarbonate and (2) epoxy/boehmite. The preparation of the model samples allowed for the assignment of material phases based on AFM topography. Additional chemical characterization on the nanoscale is performed by an AFM/infrared-spectroscopy hybrid method. Mechanical properties (k_r) and attractive forces (F_attr) are calculated and a structure–property correlation is obtained by a manual principle component analysis (mPCA) from a k_r/F_attr diagram. A third sample comprised of (3) epoxy/polycarbonate/boehmite is measured by ImAFM. The measurement of a 2 × 2 µm cross section yields 128 × 128 force curves which are successfully evaluated by a k_r/F_attr diagram and the nanoscopic heterogeneity of the sample is determined.

Thermoplastic modified thermosets are of great interest especially due to their improved fracture toughness. Comparable enhancements have been achieved by adding different nanofillers including inorganic particles such as nanosized boehmite. Here, we present a nanomechanical study of two composite systems, the first comprising a polycarbonate (PC) layer in contact with epoxy resin (EP) and the second consisting of a PC layer containing boehmite nanoparticles (BNP) which is also in contact with an EP layer. The interaction between PC and EP monomer is tested by in situ Fourier transformed infrared (FT‐IR) analysis, from which a reaction induced phase separation of the PC phase is inferred. Both systems are explored by atomic force microscopy (AFM) force spectroscopy. AFM force‐distance curves (FDC) show no alteration of the mechanical properties of EP at the interface to PC. However, when a PC phase loaded with BNP is put in contact with an epoxy system during curing, a considerable mechanical improvement exceeding the rule of mixture was detected. The trend of BNP to agglomerate preferentially around EP dominated regions and the stiffening effect of BNP on EP shown by spatial resolved measurements of Young's modulus, suggest the effective presence of BNP within the EP phase.

The reinforcing effect of boehmite nanoparticles (BNP) in epoxy resins for fiber composite lightweight construction is related to the formation of a soft but bound interphase between filler and polymer. The interphase is able to dissipate crack propagation energy and consequently increases the fracture toughness of the epoxy resin. Usually, the nanoparticles are dispersed in the resin and then mixed with the hardener to form an applicable mixture to impregnate the fibers. If one wishes to locally increase the fracture toughness at particularly stressed positions of the fiber-reinforced polymer composites (FRPC), this could be done by spraying nanoparticles from a suspension. However, this would entail high costs for removing the nanoparticles from the ambient air. We propose that a fiber fleece containing bound nanoparticles be inserted at exposed locations. For the present proof-of-concept study, an electrospun polycarbonate nonwoven and taurine modified BNP are proposed. After fabrication of suitable PC/EP/BNP composites, the thermomechanical properties were tested by dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). Comparatively, the local nanomechanical properties such as stiffness and elastic modulus were determined by atomic force microscopy (AFM). An additional investigation of the distribution of the nanoparticles in the epoxy matrix, which is a prerequisite for an effective nanocomposite, is carried out by scanning electron microscopy in transmission mode (TSEM). From the results it can be concluded that the concept of carrier fibers for nanoparticles is viable.