Highly\nTunable Interfacial Adhesion of Glass Fiber by Hybrid Multilayers\nof Graphene Oxide and Aramid Nanofiber

Abstract

The performance of fiber-reinforced\ncomposites is governed not only by the nature of each individual component\ncomprising the composite but also by the interfacial properties between\nthe fiber and the matrix. We present a novel layer-by-layer (LbL)\nassembly for the surface modification of a glass fiber to enhance\nthe interfacial properties between the glass fiber and the epoxy matrix.\nSolution-processable graphene oxide (GO) and an aramid nanofiber (ANF)\nwere employed as active components for the LbL assembly onto the glass\nfiber, owing to their abundant functional groups and mechanical properties.\nWe found that the interfacial properties of the glass fibers uniformly\ncoated with GO and ANF multilayers, such as surface free energy and\ninterfacial shear strength, were improved by 23.6% and 39.2%, respectively,\ncompared with those of the bare glass fiber. In addition, the interfacial\nadhesion interactions between the glass fiber and the epoxy matrix\nwere highly tunable simply by changing the composition and the architecture\nof layers, taking advantage of the versatility of the LbL assembly.