Influence of micro- and nano-fillers on chemico-physical properties of epoxy-based materials

In the marine field epoxy-based materials are currently used to insulate the surface of the vessels, improve their surface finish and prepare it for the next painting treatments. A wide variety of fillers have been added to the epoxy resins in order to achieve an improvement of some properties, such as lightness, thermical insulation, hardness/tenderness of the surface. In this article new hollow glass microspheres and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were added to an epoxy matrix to obtain some new, different epoxy composites to compare with a traditional one. Their density, hardness, tensile strength and flexural strength were studied. The different hollow glass microspheres-filled composites showed a wide range of mechanical behaviour. On the other hand, the mechanical properties of the CNTs-filled composites were slightly improved when compared to those of the control material.