Investigation of mechanical properties of thermoplastic elastomer based composites

Along with the developing technology, every day significant innovations are emerged in polymer technology. With these innovations, the diversity of the polymers has been increased and their properties have been improved. These properties extended the applications of the polymers. Recent years, thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) with good mechanical properties and elasticity that is recycled, easily processable have became one of the most feasible polymers for many research. Styren-ethylene-butylene-styrene (SEBS) block copolymer is a thermoplastic elastomer, that consists of rigid styrene and elastic ethylene-butylene groups. Since SEBS involves both rigid and elastic parts, it has a lot of advantages in terms of mechanical properties. In addition to these, there are many advantages such as recycling and easy fabrication. Recently in order to improve properties of SEBS block copolymer, SEBS composites are fabricated by using carboneous fillers. Among the carbonepus fillers, graphite, reduced graphene oxide and carbon nanofibers attrack attention due to their mechanical properties. In this study, graphite, reduced graphene oxide and carbon nanofibers/SEBS composites were fabricated. Graphite and carbon nanofibers were bought, reduced graphene oxide was fabricated in the laboratory. Reduced graphene oxide was synthesized by using modified Hummers' Method. Obtained reduced graphene oxide was analyzed by scanning electron microscope and transmission electron microscope. Two types of SEBS with different molecular weights were used in this research. Different polymer composites were prepared based on the filler ratio. Morphology and mechanical properties of the samples were investigated by using scanning electron microscope and mechanical testing device respectively. According to the results mechanical properties of the polymer based composites are influenced by both polymer matrix and the filler material.