Dispersion of graphene in silane coupling agent aqueous solutions

In order to reduce the agglomeration of nanographene and improve its dispersibility,six silane coupling agents were used to modify the surface of the nanographene particles.Visual inspection,Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy,transmission electron microscopy,Raman spectroscopy,and X-ray diffraction were employed to evaluate the dispersion properties of the resulting graphene in an aqueous solution of silane coupling agents.Results show that all six types of silane coupling agents are efficient in promoting the dispersion of graphene in aqueous solutions,and no obvious sedimentation of the graphene dispersion solution is observed after a stationary storage period of 30 d.Taking 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane(KH-550)as an example,after the graphene is dispersed in the KH-550 aqueous solution,the carboxyl group on the surface of the graphene reacts with the KH-550 amino group to form an amide bond,and KH-550 is successfully grafted onto the graphene surface.Polar functional groups ionize in water,creating an electrostatic repulsion effect,or hydrophilic functional groups form hydrogen bonds with water molecules,which is believed to improve the dispersion stability of graphene.The dispersed graphene is curled and contains many folds.Each fold has about three or four layers,with an interlayer spacing of about 0.65 nm.The dispersed graphene also has a complete lattice and a reduced number of defects.Nanographene disperses well in silane coupling agent aqueous solutions and can,therefore,be used to prepare cement-based composites.

A uniaxial tensile constitutive equation of high-ductility cementitious composites

In order to establish the constitutive relationship of high-ductility cementitious composites(HDCCs)under uniaxial tensile load and to guide the structural design of HDCCs,based on the analysis of the existing uniaxial tensile constitutive relationship and ideal elastoplastic linear strain-hardening model,a bilinear tensile constitutive equation of HDCCs was proposed.The points of nominal initial cracking and nominal maximum stress were adopted as control points of the line segment,and the constitutive relationship of HDCCs was established.Five series of uniaxial tensile stress-strain curves of HDCCs were combined to perform an experimental application of the constitutive equation,along with an analysis of the key parameters.The experimental results confirm the ability of the constitutive equation to overcome the problem of insufficient or excessive redundancy of existing models in terms of calculation bearing capacity.Specifically,the measured maximum stress value is larger than the nominal value,and the ratio between the two values ranges from 1.08 to 1.22.Additionally,the tensile strain at the softening point obtained by fitting a straight line with the valley points of the strain-hardening stage curve is greater than or equal to the tensile strain at the measured maximum stress point and the ratio of the fitted values to the measured values ranges from 1.00 to 1.19.