Graphene Oxide and Thermally Exfoliated Graphene Cyanate Ester Resin Composites

Recent investigations of cyanate ester resins as high temperature resin materials for space and propulsion applications have brought attention to the need for high temperature composite materials with improved stiffness, strength, hotwet performance and high maximum use temperatures. The addition of nanocomposite filler materials has been shown to provide property improvement to cyanate ester resins, but often only at high loading levels and with improvement in only one property. Graphene, an allotrope of carbon, is the strongest material yet measured and displays exceptionally high thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity and gas impermeability. Since graphene is an atomically thick monolayer of carbon atoms arranged in a honey-comb lattice, its high surface to volume ratio allows property improvements at lower weight fractions than other composite fillers. The morphology, surface chemical functionality and thermal properties of graphene vary depending on the method of isolation from graphite and subsequent chemical and thermal treatments. Two forms of graphene, graphene oxide and thermally reduced graphene oxide, were dispersed in a commercial cyanate ester resin. The methods of graphene synthesis, isolation and incorporation of graphene into cyanate resin networks will be presented, as will preliminary property investigations of graphene-polycyanurate composites.