Molybdenum disulfide@nickel phyllosilicate hybrid for improving the flame retardancy and wear resistance of epoxy composites

Abstract

In this study, nickel phyllosilicate was synthesized based on molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂@NiPS) by the sol-gel method, and then MoS₂@NiPS was used to prepare epoxy composites. The thermal stability, flame retardancy, and frictional performances of epoxy composites were studied. With the addition of 3 wt% MoS₂@NiPS, the epoxy composite increased the limiting oxygen index from 23.8% to 26.1% and reduced the vertical burning time from 166 s for epoxy resin to 35 s. The residual char of the epoxy composite increased from 11.8 to 20.2 wt%. MoS₂@NiPS promoted the graphitization of the residual char, and facilitated the formation of a dense and continuous char layer, thereby improving the fire safety of epoxy resin. The epoxy composite with 3 wt% MoS₂@NiPS had excellent wear resistance property with a wear rate of 2.19 × 10⁻⁵ mm³·N^–1·m^–1, which was 68.8% lower than that of epoxy resin. This study presented a practical approach to improve the frictional and fire resistance of epoxy composites.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

molybdenum disulfide / nickel phyllosilicate / epoxy resin / flame retardancy

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Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge Outstanding Youth Scientific Research Project in Anhui Province (Grant No. 2022AH020055), Key Research and Development Projects in Anhui Province (Grant No. 2022i01020016), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52074011), and the University Synergy innovation Program of Anhui Province (Grant No. GXXT-2022-018).

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