Owing to their high strength and stiffness, thermal and environmental stability, lower shrinkage, and water resistance, epoxy resins have been the preferred matrix for the development of syntactic foams using hollow glass microspheres. Although these foams are exploited in multiple applications, one of their issues is the possibility of breakage of the glass hollow microspheres during processing. Here, we present a straightforward and single-step foaming protocol using expandable polymeric microspheres based on the well-established compression molding process. We demonstrate the viability of the protocol producing two sets of nanocomposite foams filled with carbon-based nanoparticles with improved transport properties.
Keywords: conductivity; epoxy; expandable microspheres; foams; graphene; nanotubes; syntactic foams.