The members of Nanotechnology Research Group at Khazar University and undergraduate students of Baku Higher Oil School, Sunay Hasanov, Elnur Rasulov and Ismayil Aliyev, have done their research project entitled “The impact of graphene and graphene oxide on improvement of polyurethane mechanical properties” under supervision of Dr. Rasoul Moradi and advisory of Dr. Amir Reza Vakhshouri at Khazar NanoLab and published their findings in the journal of Materials today: proceedings.

In their study a molecular dynamics approach was followed to investigate the surface adsorption of polyurethane on graphene and graphene oxide models. Graphene (G) and graphene oxide (GO) samples were created of the same two-dimensional (2D) sizes of 96×57 Å2, where the number of carbonyl, carboxyl, epoxy, and hydroxyl groups were altered to obtain GO samples with varied oxidation degrees. The highly functionalized samples exhibited better adsorption in comparison to pristine graphene. Furthermore, radial distribution function was analyzed and used for validation of simulation model. Finally, the effects of G/GO addition into polymer on the mechanical properties of polyurethane were examined. It was found that addition of graphene resulted in enhanced Young’s modulus with a significant increase from 0.42 GPa to 4.88 GPa, whereas highly oxidized G sheets resulted in proportionally lower figures such as 0.54 GPa, 1.39 GPa.

The article can be read at this link:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214785321025827?dgcid=author