A novel epoxy/MXene nanocomposite adhesive in aluminum-aluminum bonded joints:Mechanical properties and lap shear strength

Commonly used for connecting many surfaces to one another, epoxy-based adhesives (EBAs) are composed of a particular epoxy resin coupled with a curing agent. Despite their favorable characteristics like high resistance to chemicals and corrosion, limited shrinkage upon curing, high strength, and excellent adhesion power, EBAs suffer from such drawbacks as too high crosslinking density, high internal stress, low impact strength, and high brittleness of cured resin, which have limited their applicability for high-tech applications. In the present work, in order to improve the mechanical properties of the EBAs, we used some members of an emerging family of materials with a two-dimensional structure called MXene. So far, more than 30 different MXene compounds have been synthesized. Adding 2 phr of synthesized Ti3C2Tx MXene nanoparticles to the epoxy resin, we could improve the lap shear strength, tensile strength, and toughness by 33.24%, 16.31%, and 58.03%, respectively, as compared to the pure epoxy.