Wednesday  |  Frick  |  11:10 AM–11:30 AM

#13870, How Graphene Oxide Content in Poly (ethylene glycol) Affects Phase Separation in Epoxy Matrix for High Performance Structural Supercapacitor Applications

Structural supercapacitors represent a promising technology that will help in mitigating range anxiety while providing structural integrity to electric vehicles. In most structural supercapacitors, poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG), the ionic component of structural supercapacitor, is responsible for providing percolating channels for ion transfer. The formation of a percolating network of PEG inside epoxy resin is the result of cure-reaction induced phase separation (CRIPS) that occurs at curing temperature due to spinodal decomposition. Various nanofillers have been explored (organoclay, TiO2 nanoparticles, and LLZO) that enhance the ionic conductivity while improving the elastic modulus. Out of these, graphene oxide is a promising nanofiller that has high ionic conductivity due to presence of functional groups on its basal plane and also provides excellent mechanical properties. Hence, it is instructive to understand the effect of graphene oxide on the size of percolating channels, since these will directly affect the overall performance of the structural supercapacitor. This study explores the effect of change in weight percentage of graphene oxide on phase separation. To this end, graphene oxide content is varied from (0 to 0.7 weight percentage with respect to PEG) to study the magnitude of phase separation between PEG and epoxy. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images show promising results suggesting a decrease in pore diameter as amount of graphene oxide is increased, that will enhance the mechanical and electrical properties. By varying the amounts of graphene oxide, we are able to achieve an electrolyte that provides optimal multi-functional performance. Detailed study on the effect of graphene oxide in percolating PEG network in tailoring of mechanical and ionic conductivity properties will be carried out in the near future. These results will be presented and discussed.

Alan Austin   Oklahoma State University
Sai Kotikalapudi   Oklahoma State University
Padmanapan Rao   Oklahoma State University
Raman Singh   Oklahoma State University