Poly(butylene terephthalate) Nanocomposites Containing Carbon Nanotube

Abstract

Carbon nanotube (CNT) has attracted of great interest as advanced nanoreinforcements in new kinds of polymer nanocomposites because of the combination of its unique extraordinary properties with high aspect ratio and small size (Ebbesen, 1997; Dresselhaus et al., 2001; Schadler et al., 1998; Ajayan, 1999; Bokobza, 2007; Paul & Robesson, 2008). In particular, excellent mechanical strength, thermal conductivity, and electrical properties of CNT have created a high level of activity in materials research and development for potential applications such as fuel cell, hydrogen storage, field emission display, chemical or biological sensor, and advanced polymer nanocomposites (Iijima, 1991; De Heer et al., 1995; Wong et al, 1997; Fan et al., 1999; Kim & Lieber, 1999; Liu et al., 1999; Kong et al., 2000; Ishihara et al., 2001; Alan et al., 2003; Wu & Shaw, 2005). This feature has motivated a number of attempts to fabricate CNT/polymer nanocomposites in the development of highperformance composite materials (Kim et al., 2006; Kim et al., 2007; Kim et al., 2008; Kim, 2009; Kim et al., 2009; Kim et al., 2010). In this regard, much research and development have been performed to date for achieving the practical realization of excellent properties of CNT for advanced polymer nanocomposites in a broad range of industrial applications. However, because of high cost and limited availability, only a few practical applications in industrial fields such as electronic and electric appliances have been realized to date. The CNT consisting of concentric cylinder of graphite layers is a new form of carbon and can be classified into three types (Dresselhaus et al., 2001; Iijima, 1991; Shonaike & Advani, 2003): single-walled CNT (SWCNT), double-walled CNT (DWCNT), and multi-walled CNT (MWCNT). SWCNT consists of a single layer of carbon atoms through the thickness of the cylindrical wall with the diameters of 1.0-1.4 nm, two such concentric cylinders forms DWCNT, and MWCNT consists of several layers of coaxial carbon tubes, the diameters of which range from 10 to 50 nm with the length of more than 10 μm (Dresselhaus et al., 2001; Iijima, 1991; Shonaike & Advani, 2003). The graphite nature of the nanotube lattice results in a fiber with high strength, stiffness, and conductivity, and higher aspect ratio represented by very small diameter and long length makes it possible for CNTs to be ideal nanoreinforcing fillers in advanced polymer nanocomposites (Thostenson et al., 2001). Both theoretical and experimental approaches suggest the exceptional mechanical properties of CNTs ~100 times higher than the strongest steel at a fraction of the weight (Goze et al., 1999; Yao et al., 2001;