Graphene has specially attracted a lot of attention because of its unique properties such as excellent electrical conductivity, high thermal conductivity, and great mechanical strength, etc. The main problems of graphene preparations are high production cost and low productivity; therefore, synthesis of graphene-like carbon is interesting in order to use as an alternative conductive material. Polybenzoxazine, as a novel class of thermosetting phenolic resin, was chosen as an alternative precursor for graphene-like carbon preparation because it has many remarkable advantages, such as high char yield, molecular design flexibility, and good mechanical properties. Moreover, it can be synthesized from low cost raw materials (i.e., phenol, formaldehyde, and amine) and polymerized by a ring-opening reaction, without by-product formation. In this study, sol-gel process was used to synthesize polybenzoxazine precursor, in which Cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) was used as a soft template to produce graphene-like carbon with high electrical conductivity. FT-IR was used to examine the chemical structure of polybenzoxazine, DSC and TGA were used to investigate thermal properties. In addition, the effect of curing profiles, pyrolysis rates and temperatures, and flash heat process in the pyrolysis on the changing structure of carbon were studied. The results were verified by SAXS, Raman spectra, and two-point probe.

Designing benzoxazine-based carbon towards highly conductive graphene-like material

251st National Meeting (2016)

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