Structures and Properties of Carbon Nanotubes/Thermosets Nanocomposites Subjected to External Electric Field during Cure Stage

Abstract

In this investigation, the multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were dispersed in an interpenetrating polymer networks (IPNs) based on acrylate and cycloaliphatic epoxy resin (CER). The influences of the external electric field on the MWCNTs dispersion and the microstructure of host matrix were evaluated by means of optical microscopy, scanning electric microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), respectively. The microscopy measurements showed that the distribution of the MWCNTs depended strongly on the properties of the applied electric field. Applying AC electric field to the liquid MWCNTs/thermoset systems during curing stage could redistribute the MWCNTs, which arranged them in chain-like structures and oriented fibrous inclusions parallel to the applied electric field. However, the similar phenomenon was not observed in DC electric field. From the observations of AFM measurement, it was found that the utilization of the external electric field resulted in the nanostructured twophase structures in the resulting MWCNTs/thermoset nanocomposites. These novel electric-field-induced morphology transformations were mainly attributed to the curing process under the applied electric fields. The relationships between the microstructures and various physical properties of nanocomposites were also presented in this paper. The resulting nanocomposites displayed the interesting dielectric properties and the thermal stability properties, which significantly depended on their special microstructures of inclusions and the host matrix.