Electrical and Mechanical Properties of Carbon Nanotube-Epoxy Nanocomposites Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • AbstractIn this work, electrical conductivity and thermomechanical properties have been measured for carbon nanotube reinforced epoxy matrix composites. These nanocomposites consisted of two types of nanofillers, single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) and electrical grade carbon nanotubes (XDCNT). The influence of the type of nanotubes and their corresponding loading weight fraction on the microstructure and the resulting electrical and mechanical properties of the nanocomposites have been investigated. The electrical conductivity of the nanocomposites showed a significantly high, about seven orders of magnitude, improvement at very low loading weight fractions of nanotubes in both types of nanocomposites. The percolation threshold in nanocomposites with SWCNT fillers was found to be around 0.015 wt % and that with XDCNT fillers around 0.0225 wt %. Transmission optical microscopy of the nanocomposites revealed some differences in the microstructure of the two types of nanocomposites which can be related to the variation in the percolation thresholds of these nanocomposites. The mechanical properties (storage modulus and loss modulus) and the glass transition temperature have not been compromised with the addition of fillers compared with significant enhancement of electrical properties. The main significance of these results is that XDCNTs can be used as a cost effective nanofiller for electrical applications of epoxy based nanocomposites at a fraction of SWCNT cost. 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010

published proceedings

  • JOURNAL OF APPLIED POLYMER SCIENCE

author list (cited authors)

  • Thakre, P. R., Bisrat, Y., & Lagoudas, D. C.

citation count

  • 44

complete list of authors

  • Thakre, Piyush R||Bisrat, Yordanos||Lagoudas, Dimitris C

publication date

  • April 2010

publisher