CARBON NANOTUBES AND SHORT HIGH MODULUS CARBON FIBRES COMBINATION TO COMPOSITE PREPARATION

Abstract

The improvement of the thermal properties of high conductive metal matrix composites is expected with suitable coefficient of thermal expansion CTE by using short carbon fibres Granoc XN-100 having axial thermal conductivity of 9 00 W/m.K upon its combination with carbon nanotubes (CNTs). From this reason a parametric study of the synthesis of multi wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) by catalytic decomposition of acetylene over catalyst precursor based on nanometer sized hematite particles was performed. The nanoparticles were applied on the surface of commercial short high modulus (HM) carbon Granoc XN-100 fibres and MWCNTs were grown by catalytic chemical vapour deposition (CCVD) method. SEM and TEM images showed that multi wall CNTs was prepared but coaxial cylindrical graphene sheets and bamboo like microstructure was observed. The variation the CNTs synthesis parameters e.g. reaction time and surface covering density of hematite catalyst on HM carbon fibres resulted in production of desired quantity and quality of CNTs.