Fabrication, Morphological, and Thermal Investigation of Epoxy-Polyamide Nanocomposites Reinforced with Carbon Nanotubes

Abstract—Epoxy-polyamide CNTs reinforced nanocomposites have the excessive ability for their uniform structures and specific properties and have considerable attention owing to their potential applications. In this work, epoxy/polyamide (ER-PA) and CNTs reinforced epoxy/polyamide (ER-PA/CNTs) nanocomposites were prepared by using the solution casting method. Herein, Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) was applied to indicate the responsible functional groups, presented in the prepared nanocomposites. Surface morphology and particle dispersion of the prepared nanocomposites were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The obtained results demonstrated that the CNT’s weight content, dispersion rates, and the surface functionalization of CNTs nanoparticles have a strong influence on the surface morphology of the prepared nanocomposites. The thermal properties and crystalline nature of the ER-PA/CNTs nanocomposites were studied by using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses. The prepared nanocomposites showed good thermal stability and crystalline behavior as compared to the ER-PA nanocomposites network system. From the obtained results, it can be assumed that this effort can help to design other reinforced nanocomposites for promising applications in the nanocomposites materials industry.