Preparation and characterization of phenolic foam reinforced with expandable graphite and expanded graphite

In this paper, two kinds of phenolic foams modified with expandable graphite and expanded graphite were prepared and the effect of particles on the mechanical properties and structure of the foams has been discussed. The mechanical properties, density and morphology of reinforced phenolic foams were studied. The images of scanning electron microscope showed that the size of the modified phenolic foams was smaller and more complete. The mean diameter of the expanded graphite-reinforced phenolic foams was smaller than that of the expandable graphite-reinforced phenolic foams due to the specific surface area of the expanded graphite. The compressive test results showed that the expandable graphite and expanded graphite could enhance the mechanical properties of the foams obviously. And the smaller cell size of the expanded graphite-reinforced foams provided them better mechanical properties. When the addition of the reinforcement reached to 0.8 wt%, the reinforced phenolic foams showed the best compression performance. The compressive strength and modulus with the 0.8 wt% expandable graphite were increased by 70% and 48% and that with the 0.8 wt% expanded graphite were increased by 80% and 69%.