Abstract The need of decreasing cost and weight of polymeric materials for emerging engineering applications, by keeping the level of performance high, has been drastically increasing among industries. In this study, a new and advanced lightweight Polyethylene (PE) based biphasic system, with performance exceeding the ones of virgin PP, has been disclosed. After proposing a novel graphene composition, achieved by Graphene Oxide (GO) functionalization and reduction, along with Maleic Anhydride Polypropylene (MAPP) grafting, a thermodynamically driven mixing mechanism was employed to fully localize the functional graphene at the interface of a PE based PE/PP macro-micro biphasic system. Following this, a detailed analysis of morphological attributes, through Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), revealed that the highly exfoliated graphitic co-factor, by being homogeneously distributed at the PE/PP interface, promoted a remarkably fine dispersion of the minor phase into the matrix, leading to a significant enhancement in strength, stiffness and toughness, with respect to the unmodified binary system, exceeding virgin PP mechanical properties. These findings open new avenues for the manufacturing of advanced lightweight polyolefin materials with tuned functionalities, which, being cost-effective and high-performance, will bring a paradigm shift in the engineering applications of an abundant synthetic polymeric molecule.

中文翻译：

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新型功能石墨烯及其在双相聚烯烃系统中的热力学界面定位，用于高级轻量化应用

摘要 在新兴工程应用中，通过保持高性能水平来降低聚合物材料的成本和重量的需求在各行业中急剧增加。在这项研究中，公开了一种新型先进的轻质聚乙烯 (PE) 基双相系统，其性能超过了原始 PP 的性能。在提出一种通过氧化石墨烯 (GO) 功能化和还原以及马来酸酐聚丙烯 (MAPP) 接枝实现的新型石墨烯组合物后，采用热力学驱动的混合机制将功能性石墨烯完全定位在基于 PE 的 PE/ PP 宏微双相系统。在此之后，通过扫描电子显微镜 (SEM) 和透射电子显微镜 (TEM) 对形态属性进行详细分析，揭示了高度剥离的石墨辅助因子通过均匀分布在 PE/PP 界面，促进了次要相在基体中的显着细分散，导致强度、刚度和韧性的显着提高，相对于未改性的二元体系，超过原始 PP 的机械性能。这些发现为制造具有可调功能的先进轻质聚烯烃材料开辟了新途径，该材料具有成本效益和高性能，将为丰富的合成聚合物分子的工程应用带来范式转变。相对于未改性的二元体系，导致强度、刚度和韧性的显着增强，超过了原始 PP 的机械性能。这些发现为制造具有可调功能的先进轻质聚烯烃材料开辟了新途径，该材料具有成本效益和高性能，将为丰富的合成聚合物分子的工程应用带来范式转变。相对于未改性的二元体系，导致强度、刚度和韧性的显着增强，超过了原始 PP 的机械性能。这些发现为制造具有可调功能的先进轻质聚烯烃材料开辟了新途径，该材料具有成本效益和高性能，将为丰富的合成聚合物分子的工程应用带来范式转变。