Obtaining nanocomposites based on recycled polystyrene from urban solid waste with carbon nanostructures: graphene oxide and multi-wall carbon nanotubes, modified with organic acids

Abstract

The excessive use of polystyrene has caused great environmental problems at a global level, an alternative to reduce this problem is recycling, in order to obtain new products from waste, so the objective of this manuscript is to obtain nanocomposites (NCs) from recycled polystyrene with the integration of graphene oxide (OG) and multiple walled carbon nanotubes (NTCPM) previously modified with benzoic acid at concentrations of 0.33 and 5% respectively. Low toxicity solvent was used. The materials obtained were characterized by infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and light microscopy, finding by FTIR that the chemical structure of the polystyrene was not affected after the integration of the nanostructures and processing, which suggests that they are maintained the properties, regarding the optical micrographs, it can be observed that the NCs with the modified nanostructures presented a homogeneous dispersion, with respect to the thermogravimetric analysis, they increased 27 ° C in thermal stability.