Preparation of a poly(methyl methacrylate)-reduced graphene oxide composite with enhanced properties by a solution blending method

Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA)/graphene nanocomposites were prepared by a simple solution blending method. The glass transition temperature of the produced PMMA/graphene composite was increased by 37 °C with 1.0 wt.% RGO content, which is approximately 40% of improvement compared to that of pure PMMA. The thermal expansion coefficient (TEC) decreased by 68% with as low as 0.1 wt.% RGO loading. The electrical conductivity of the nanocomposites reached up to 0.037 S/m even with only 2.0 wt.% RGO, which increased by more than twelve orders of magnitude. The resulting nanocomposites showed that a stable colloidal suspension of graphene dispersion in organic solvent before blending with PMMA is necessary to fabricate the nanocomposites with enhanced properties.