Ricerc@Sapienza

Improving energy dissipation in lightweight polymer nanocomposites to achieve environmentally friendly and mechanically stable structures has reached a limit because of the low-density electrostatic interactions that can be harnessed through the stick-slip mechanism between carbonaceous nanofillers and polymeric chains wrapped around them. In this paper, the atomic friction between the two nanocomposite components is greatly amplified by locally increasing the density of the energetically higher noncovalent bonds. This gives rise to a new material design concept in which crystallite structures, nucleated around the carbonaceous nanofillers, become the source of enhanced energy dissipation. The rheological concept is a nanopiston unit consisting of a carbon nanotube (CNT) as a nanofiller coated with crystallite structures which, upon unconventionally and reversibly overcoming the interfacial interaction forces, monolithically roto-translate from an energetically stable state to the adjacent states. The efficiency of this novel "sliding crystals" mechanism is proven by its higher dissipation capability that turns out to be at least twice as much as that of the conventional CNT/polymer stick-slip within a larger strain range.