Outstanding mechanical and optical properties of diamond nanoparticles in combination with their biocompatibility have recently attracted much attention. Modification of the surface chemistry and incorporation into polymer is required in many applications of nanodiamond. Nanodiamond powder with reactive amino groups (~20% of the number of surface carbon atoms in each 5 nm particle) was produced by covalent linking of ethylenediamine to the surface carboxyl groups via amide bonds. The synthesized material was reacted with epoxy resin yielding a composite, in which nanodiamond particles are covalently incorporated into the polymer matrix. The effect of amino groups grafted to nanodiamond on curing chemistry of epoxy resin was analyzed and taken into consideration. Covalently bonded nanodiamond-epoxy composites showed three times higher hardness, 50% higher Young's modulus, and two times lower creep compared to the composites in which nanodiamond was not chemically linked to the matrix. Aminated nanodiamond produced and characterized in the present study may also find applications beyond composites, for example, as a drug, protein, and gene delivery platform in medicine, as a solid support in chromatography and separation science or in solid state peptide synthesis.

Covalent incorporation of nanodiamond into epoxy polymers

244th National Meeting (2012)

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