ABSTRACT
The discovery of novel polymer nanocomposites often termed as bionanocomposites forms a fascinating interdisciplinary area that brings together biology, materials science, and nanotechnology (Hule and Pochan, 2007; Paul and Robeson, 2008). These polymer nanocomposites have established themselves as a promising class of hybrid materials derived from natural and synthetic biodegradable polymers and organic/inorganic fillers (Kuilla et al., 2010). Generally, polymer nanocomposites are the result of the combination of polymers and inorganic/organic fillers at the nanometer scale. Existing bionanocomposites include combination of biopolymers namely polysaccharides, aliphatic polyesters, polypeptides and proteins, and polynucleic acids and inorganic nanofillers such as clays, hydroxyapatite, and metal nanoparticles (Hule and Pochan, 2007). Alternatively, carbon-based nanofillers such as carbon black, expanded graphite (EG), carbon nanotube (CNT), and carbon nanofiber have been proven as the effective nanofiller in comparison to the inorganic/organic fillers because of their improved physicochemical, mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties (Armentano et al., 2010; Kuilla et al., 2010). Recently, two-dimensional (2D) carbon nanostructures, such as graphene (GNS), have been extensively explored for the preparation of polymer nanocomposites with tremendous application potential (Ryu and Shanmugharaj, 2014a, b; Ryu et al., 2014; Alam et al., 2015).
