Thermal and Dynamic Mechanical Behaviours of CCTO/ENR-25 Composite

Abstract

A study on polymer-ceramic composite, CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO) embedded in epoxidised natural rubber (ENR-25) were successfully fabricated through mixing method using an internal mixer and two-roll mill followed by hot-pressed via compression moulding for a potential electronic device such as a flexible capacitor. CCTO powders were successfully synthesised through a solid-state reaction and calcined at 900 °C for 12 hours. The ENR-25 was blended with 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, and 120 phr (part per hundreds of rubber) of CCTO powders. Thermal stability and degradation are crucial properties for the composite based polymer. Therefore, thermogravimetric and differential scanning calorimetry (TGA/DSC) used to find out the thermal reaction and degradation mechanism of CCTO/ENR-25 composites. Besides, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) also used to investigate glass transition temperature (Tg) and storage modulus. TGA/DSC showed a two-step degradation mechanism with increasing thermal stability over increasing filler content of CCTO and only showed a major endothermic reaction. However, for DMA there is no significant difference in Tg value between each composite but showed high storage modulus up to 4398 MPa for 120 phr. High storage modulus indicates the high stiffness of the composite. In conclusion, the addition of filler content will show high thermal stability, storage modulus, and stiffness of CCTO/ENR-25 composites.