Development of Waste Polystyrene-Based Copper Oxide/Reduced Graphene Oxide Composites and Their Mechanical, Electrical and Thermal Properties

Waqas Ahmad; Qaizar Ahmad; Muhammad Yaseen; Imtiaz Ahmad; Fida Hussain; Badrul Mohamed Jan; Rabia Ikram; Minas M Stylianakis; George Kenanakis

doi:10.3390/nano11092372

Development of Waste Polystyrene-Based Copper Oxide/Reduced Graphene Oxide Composites and Their Mechanical, Electrical and Thermal Properties

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2021 Sep 13;11(9):2372. doi: 10.3390/nano11092372.

Authors

Waqas Ahmad¹, Qaizar Ahmad¹, Muhammad Yaseen¹, Imtiaz Ahmad¹, Fida Hussain², Badrul Mohamed Jan³, Rabia Ikram³, Minas M Stylianakis⁴, George Kenanakis⁴

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Chemical Sciences, University of Peshawar, Peshawar 25120, Pakistan.
² Department of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Pak-Austria Fachhochschule, Institute of Applied Science & Technology, Haripur 22621, Pakistan.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia.
⁴ Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas, N. Plastira 100, Vasilika Vouton, GR-700 13 Heraklion, Greece.

Abstract

The current study reports the effect of different wt. ratios of copper oxide nanoparticle (CuO-NPs) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) as fillers on mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties of waste polystyrene (WPS) matrix. Firstly, thin sheets of WPS-rGO-CuO composites were prepared through solution casting method with different ratios, i.e., 2, 8, 10, 15 and 20 wt.% of CuO-NPs and rGO in WPS matrix. The synthesized composite sheets were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). The electrical conductance and mechanical strength of the prepared composites were determined by using LCR meter and universal testing machine (UTM). These properties were dependent on the concentrations of CuO-NPs and rGO. Results display that the addition of both fillers, i.e., rGO and CuO-NPs, collectively led to remarkable increase in the mechanical properties of the composite. The incorporation of rGO-CuO: 15% WPS sample, i.e., WPS-rGO-CuO: 15%, has shown high mechanical strength with tensile strength of 25.282 MPa and Young modulus of 1951.0 MPa, respectively. Similarly, the electrical conductance of the same composite is also enhanced from 6.7 × 10^-14 to 4 × 10^-7 S/m in contrast to WPS at 2.0 × 10⁶ Hz. The fabricated composites exhibited high thermal stability through TGA analysis in terms of 3.52% and 6.055% wt. loss at 250 °C as compared to WPS.

Keywords: copper oxide; electrical conductance; reduced graphene oxide; waste polystyrene matrix.