Biomineralized coordinated metal polymers in epoxy for high mechanical and tribological properties

Abstract

In this study, three types of self-assembled low dimensional metal-organic materials (MOMs) were synthesized at room temperature and characterized. These hybrid structures acted as a bridge connecting the biomimetic world to the real engineering applications which haven't been explored yet. Here, 5 wt% Co-Imid reinforced epoxy composite demonstrated an increase in tensile strength and elongation at break of about 61% and 177% in comparison to neat epoxy, being far better than the other MOM fillers employed. Moreover, an increase of 61% and 64% in thermal conductivity and hardness were observed for this composite, which lead to an enhancement of 80% in wear resistance in comparison to neat epoxy. These remarkable improvements can be attributed to the structural changes when fillers are added to the epoxy therefore, promising in further exploiting these types of composites for other practical applications.