Ecofriendly Fabrication of Modified Graphene Oxide Latex Nanocomposites with High Oxygen Barrier Performance

Large-scale industrial applications of barrier films and coatings that prevent permeation of degradative gases and moisture call for the development of cost-efficient and ecofriendly polymer nanocomposites. Herein, we report the facile fabrication of latex nanocomposites (LNCs) by incorporating surface-modified graphene oxide (mGO) at various loadings (0.025-1.2 wt %) into a styrene-acrylic latex using water as the processing solvent. LNCs fabricated with mGO exhibited significant reductions (up to 67%) in water vapor sorption, resulting in greater environmental stability when compared to LNCs fabricated with equivalent loading of hydrophilic, unmodified GO. The assembly and coalescence of the exfoliated latex/mGO dispersions during the film formation process produced highly dispersed and well-ordered mGO domains with high aspect ratios, where alignment and overlap of the mGO domains improved with increasing mGO content. The addition of only 0.7 vol % (1.2 wt %) mGO led to an 84% decrease (relative to the neat polymer latex film) in oxygen permeability of the LNC films, an excellent barrier performance attributed to the observed LNC film morphologies. This work enables ecofriendly development of mechanically flexible mGO/LNC films with superior barrier properties for many industrial applications including protective coatings, food packaging, and biomedical products.