Abstract
Individual Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) have a great mechanical strength that needs to be transferred into macroscopic fiber assemblies. One approach to improve the mechanical strength of the CNT assemblies is by creating covalent bonding among their individual CNT building blocks. Chemical cross-linking of multiwall CNTs (MWCNTs) within the fiber has significantly improved the strength of MWCNT thread. Results reported in this work show that the cross-linked thread had a tensile strength six times greater than the strength of its control counterpart, a pristine MWCNT thread (1192 MPa and 194 MPa, respectively). Additionally, electrical conductivity changes were observed, revealing 2123.40 S·cm−1 for cross-linked thread, and 3984.26 S·cm−1 for pristine CNT thread. Characterization suggests that the obtained high tensile strength is due to the cross-linking reaction of amine groups from ethylenediamine plasma-functionalized CNT with the epoxy groups of the cross-linking agent, 4,4-methylenebis(N,N-diglycidylaniline).
Highlights
Vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are one-dimensional nanomaterials with extremely high tensile strength [1,2], elastic modulus [1,3], large aspect ratio, low density, good chemical and environmental stability [4], and high thermal and electrical conductivity [5]
multiwall CNTs (MWCNTs) threads were assembled from drawable MWCNT arrays using the dry spinning method which starts with the synthesis of vertically-aligned drawable MWCNTs, typically between 400 and 500 μm in length
MWCNT thread was functionalized with EDA, and pristine thread was kept unfunctionalized as a control
Summary
Vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are one-dimensional nanomaterials with extremely high tensile strength [1,2], elastic modulus [1,3], large aspect ratio, low density, good chemical and environmental stability [4], and high thermal and electrical conductivity [5]. Studies of CNT-reinforced nanocomposites showed that CNT was an effective reinforcing phase for enhancing the mechanical properties of polymer matrices [7], but the extent of reinforcement was limited by the quality of dispersion, CNT alignment, and load-transfer efficiency between the CNT and the matrix It seems that the full potential of CNTs have not yet been utilized in CNT assemblies like fibers, threads, and composites. Our strategy is to use free radical and ionic species in helium/nitrogen plasma in order to create active sites on CNT surface for bonding with ethylenediamine (EDA) molecules, enabling amine functionalization of the nanotubes These amine functional groups will reacts with an epoxy based cross linker known as MBDGA
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