Improvement on wear resistance property of polyurethane film by compositing plasma-treated multi-walled carbon nanotubes

Abstract

We investigated the effect of plasma-treated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) that are composited into a polyurethane (PU) film. In this journal article, we especially focused on one of mechanical properties of PU film, the wear resistance, to find how the plasma-treated CNTs give contributions to improve the resistance. Our experimental results showed that plasma-treated CNTs enhanced the wear resistance, in particular, when the CNTs treated with the plasma that was made of nitrogen–oxygen mixture gas. Then, we made measurements with infrared absorption spectroscopy to find the possible causes of the improvement. The measurement showed that the surface of the CNTs treated with nitrogen–oxygen plasma had an indication of isocyanate group, which generally hardens PU film. The plasma likely attached the functional group on CNTs, and then the CNTs added extra wear resistance of a polyurethane film.