Simultaneous reduction in situ and thiol- functionalization of Graphene Oxide during the Photopolymerization of Epoxy/Thiol-ene photocurable systems to prepare polyether-polythioether/reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites

An efficient method is reported to prepare photocurable polyether-polythioether/reduced graphene oxide (rGO) composites. X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and Raman spectroscopies were used to verify that graphene oxide (GO) was concurrently reduced and functionalyzed with thiol groups during the photopolymerization of an epoxy/thiol-ene system. The thiol groups introduced to GO during the photo-thermal treatment allowed the covalent bonding of rGO to the polymeric matrix thereby increasing the toughness and mechanical properties of the composites despite the reduced crosslink density, in comparison with a control sample without rGO.