Abstract:
Incorporation of multifunctional inorganic additives into the commercial polymers still stands as the most captivating and effective way to realize new-generation electronic components. Here, we introduce a simple, cost-effective, and environmentally benign method to covalently functionalize graphene oxide (GO) with vinyl- and aminopropyl-functionalized hybrid silica spheres with a polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS)–siloxane composition. The reaction has been carried out in a mixture of ethanol and water (used as a medium) at ambient conditions with silane precursors. Later, the synthesized hybrid material has been tested for its dielectric properties after blending with syndiotactic polystyrene, a commercially available insulating semicrystalline polymer. It was observed that the dielectric constant decreases with the addition of GOPOSS up to 1.85 with a dielectric loss of 0.02 at 5 GHz. Significant improvements in the thermal properties of the composites were verified with minimal filler loading.