Electromechanical properties of fibers produced from randomly oriented SWCNT films by wet pulling technique

Abstract

We examined a fiber formation from pristine and modified single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) films using a recently developed wet pulling technique. Crucial phenomena in the wet pulling process are a folding of a solvent soaked SWCNT film due to the liquid surface tension and fiber densification during the solvent evaporation. It is shown that electrical characteristics of the as-produced fibers are determined by the type of the liquid employed in their formation, which defines the SWCNT packing degree. The obtained specific strength (0.6–0.8 N/tex), toughness (up to 127 J/g) and specific conductivity (0.5–1.2 kS·m2/kg) are in many cases comparable with published data for fibers produced by more resource-consuming methods. These, in combination with the simplicity of our method and high piezoresistive gauge factor of 14 (for untwisted fibers at a 1% elongation), make SWCNT fibers promising components in future applications of stretchable electronics and robotics.