Polymer/2D material nanocomposite manufacturing beyond laboratory frontiers

TL;DR

This paper introduces scalable methods for manufacturing polymer/2D material nanocomposites using conventional industrial equipment, enabling large-scale production with controlled morphology and enhanced properties.

Contribution

It presents the first systematic approach to incorporate 2D materials into polymers at an industrial scale using novel deposition strategies.

Findings

Successful large-scale insertion of 2D materials into polymers.

Characterization confirms controlled morphology at millimeter scale.

Methodology applicable to all thermoplastics and 2D materials.

Abstract

Polymer nanocomposites based on 2D materials as fillers are the target in the industrial sector, but the ability to manufacture them on a large scale is very limited, and there is a lack of tools to scale up the manufacturing process of these nanocomposites. Here, for the first time, a systematic and fundamental study showing how 2D materials are inserted into the polymeric matrix in order to obtain nanocomposites using conventional and industrially scalable polymer processing machines leading to large-scale manufacturing are described. Two new strategies were used to insert pre-exfoliated 2D material into the polymer matrix, liquid-phase feeder, and solid-solid deposition. Characterizations were beyond micro and nanoscale, allowing the evaluation of the morphology for millimeter samples size. The methodologies described here are extendable to all thermoplastic polymers and 2D materials providing nanocomposites with suitable morphology to obtain singular properties and also triggering the start of the manufacturing process on a large scale.