Center of Advanced Lubrication and Seal Materials, State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China
Dr. Xiaolin Li
Center of Advanced Lubrication and Seal Materials, State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China
A novel dielectric composite with high dielectric constant (k), low dielectric loss, low elastic modulus and large actuated strain at a low electric field was prepared by a simple, low-cost and efficient method. The graphene oxide nanosheet (GO)-encapsulated carbon nanosphere (GO@CNS) hybrids were fabricated for the first time via π–π interaction and hydrogen bonding interaction by simply mixing the CNS and GO suspension. The assembly of GO@CNS hybrids around rubber latex particles was realized by hydrogen bonding interaction between carboxylated nitrile rubber (XNBR) and GO@CNS hybrids during latex compounding. The thermally reduced GO (RGO)@CNS/XNBR composites were then obtained from GO@CNS/XNBR by vulcanization and in situ thermal reduction, resulting in the formation of a segregated filler network. The results showed that k at 103 Hz obviously increased from 28 for pure XNBR to 400 for the composite with 0.75 vol% of the hybrids because of the formation of a segregated filler network and the increased interfacial polarization ability of the hybrids after in situ partial thermal reduction. Meanwhile, the composite with 0.75 vol% of the hybrids retained low conductivity (10−7 S m−1), resulting in low dielectric loss (<0.65 at 103 Hz). In addition, the elastic modulus only mildly increased with the addition of 0.75 vol% of the hybrids, retaining the good flexibility of the composites. More interestingly, the actuated strain at 7 kV mm−1 obviously increased from 2.69% for pure XNBR to 5.68% for the composite with 0.5 vol% of RGO@CNS, and the actuated strain at a lower electric field (2 kV mm−1) largely increased from 0.23% for pure XNBR to 3.06% for the composite with 0.75 vol% of RGO@CNS, which is much higher than that of other dielectric elastomers reported in previous studies, facilitating the application of the dielectric elastomer in biological and medical fields, where a low electric field is required.