Analysis of Thermal-Mechanical Properties of Silicon Dioxide/Polyvinylidene Fluoride Reinforced Non-Woven Fabric (Polypropylene) Composites

Polymers (Basel). 2020 Feb 21;12(2):481. doi: 10.3390/polym12020481.

Abstract

In this paper, solution casting method is used to prepare the PP (polypropylene) non-woven fabric based composite film filled with silicon dioxide/polyvinylidene fluoride (SiO2/PVDF). The mechanical and thermodynamic properties of PP/SiO2/PVDF composites were studied by a uniaxial tensile test under different temperature and combustion experiment. It is found that the stress of PP/SiO2/PVDF composite film with 4 wt % SiO2 is the maximum value, reaching 18.314 MPa, 244.42% higher than that of pure PP non-woven. Meanwhile, the thermal-mechanical coupling tests indicate that with the increase of temperature, the ultimate stress and strain of the composite decrease. At the same time, the thermal shrinkage property of the composite during the heating process is studied. The modified composite has good thermal stability under 180 °C. Scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermogravimetric (TG) were used to characterize the pore shape, distribution and crystal phase change of the composite. The modified PP/SiO2/PVDF composite film structure shows high strength and good thermal stability, and can better meet the requirements of strength and thermal performance of lithium-ion battery during the charging and discharging process.

Keywords: PP/SiO2/PVDF composite material; heat shrinkage property; microstructure characterization; thermal–mechanical coupling; uniaxial tensile test.