Functionalized Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube-Reinforced Polyimide Composite Films with Enhanced Mechanical and Thermal Properties

Min Chao,Guanglei Wu,Yanming Li,Zhenjun Zhou,Luke Yan

doi:10.1155/2019/9302803

Abstract

Polyimide- (PI-) based nanocomposites containing the 4,4′-diaminodiphenyl ether- (ODA-) modified multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) filler were successfully prepared. The PI/MWCNTs-ODA composite films exhibit high thermal conductivity and excellent mechanical property. The optimal value of thermal conductivity of the PI/MWCNTs-ODA composite film is 0.4397 W/mK with 3 wt.% filler loading, increased by 221.89% in comparison with that of the pure PI film. In addition, the tensile strength of the PI/MWCNTs-ODA composite film is 141.48 MPa with 3 wt.% filler loading, increased by 20.74% in comparison with that of the pure PI film. This work develops a new strategy to achieve a good balance between the high thermal conductivity and excellent mechanical properties of polyimide composite films by using functionalized carbon nanotubes as an effective thermal conductive filler.

Highlights

Polyimide (PI) has been demonstrated one of the most important high-performance engineering plastics for its excellent mechanical property [1,2,3], thermal stability [4], and chemical resistance [5] because of its rigid-rod chemical structures, showing appealing potential in the area of electronic applications, membrane, insulating materials, and aerospace industry [6,7,8,9,10]
The XRD patterns of pure multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT), MWCNTs-COOH, and MWCNTs-ODA are shown in Figure 1(a); it can be seen that the XRD patterns of the pure carbon nanotubes and the modified carbon nanotubes are similar, indicating that the functionalized carbon nanotubes still have the same tubular structure compared with the original carbon nanotubes and the lattice spacing remains unchanged
The SEM, XRD, and FTIR tests of MWCNTs-ODA/PI composite films confirmed that the addition of MWCNTs-ODA did not destroy the structure and properties of the PI matrix and there was a strong interaction between MWCNTs-ODA and PI matrix and good chemical compatibility between MWCNTs-ODA and PI matrix

Summary

Introduction

Polyimide (PI) has been demonstrated one of the most important high-performance engineering plastics for its excellent mechanical property [1,2,3], thermal stability [4], and chemical resistance [5] because of its rigid-rod chemical structures, showing appealing potential in the area of electronic applications, membrane, insulating materials, and aerospace industry [6,7,8,9,10]. Various inorganic fillers owning high thermal conductivity have been added into the PI matrix by in situ polymerization to improve the overall performance of PI, including carbon black [18, 19], alumina (Al2O3) [20, 21], aluminum nitride (AlN) [22, 23], silica (SiO2) [24, 25], titanium dioxide (TiO2) [26], silicon carbide (SiC) [27, 28], silicon nitride (Si3N4) [29, 30], boron nitride (BN) [31, 32], and zinc oxide (ZnO) [33, 34]. The mechanical and thermal properties of PI/MWCNTs-ODA nanocomposite films were studied, while varying different contents in the MWCNTs-ODA

Experimental

Results and Discussion

Conclusions