Computational Screening of Diffusive Transport in Nanoplatelet-Filled Composites: Use of Graphene to Enhance Polymer Barrier Properties
Journal article, 2018

Motivated by the substantial interest in various fillers to enhance the barrier properties of polymeric films, especially graphene derivatives, we perform a computational screening of obstructed diffusion to explore the design parameter space of nanoplatelet-filled composites synthesized in silico. As a model for the nanoplatelets, we use circular and elliptical nonoverlapping and impermeable flat disks, and diffusion is stochastically simulated using a random-walk model, from which the effective diffusivity is calculated. On the basis of 4000 generated structures and diffusion simulations, we systematically investigate the impact of different nanoplatelet characteristics such as orientation, layering, size, polydispersity, shape, and amount. We conclude that the orientation, size, and amount of nanoplatelets are the most important parameters and show that using nanoplatelets oriented perpendicular to the diffusion direction, under reasonable assumptions, with approximately 0.2% (w/w) graphene, we can reach 90% reduction and, with approximately 1% (w/w) graphene, we can reach 99% reduction in diffusivity, purely because of geometrical effects, in a defect-free matrix with perfect compatibility. Additionally, our results suggest that the existing analytical models have some difficulty with extremely large aspect ratio (extremely flat) nanoplatelets, which calls for further development.

composites

nanoplatelets

graphene

computational screening

diffusivity

Author

Magnus Röding

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Karolina Gaska

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Engineering Materials

Roland Kádár

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Engineering Materials

Niklas Lorén

Chalmers, Physics

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

ACS Applied Nano Materials

25740970 (eISSN)

Vol. 1 1 160-167

MEMS-baserad energiförsörjning av sensornätverk för Industri - Energy Supply Toolkit

VINNOVA (2016-03809), 2016-11-01 -- 2017-08-24.

Areas of Advance

Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

Materials Science

Infrastructure

C3SE (Chalmers Centre for Computational Science and Engineering)

Subject Categories

Textile, Rubber and Polymeric Materials

Composite Science and Engineering

DOI

10.1021/acsanm.7b00067

More information

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1/3/2024 9