Effects of surfactant treatment on mechanical and electrical properties.pdfVIP

Composites: Part A 39 (2008) 1876–1883 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Composites: Part A journal homepage: www. /loc ate/compositesa Effects of surfactant treatment on mechanical and electrical properties of CNT/epoxy nanocomposites Yan Geng, Ming Yang Liu, Jing Li, Xiao Mei Shi, Jang Kyo Kim * Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: Surfactant has been successfully applied to enhance the dispersion of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in poly- Received 12 June 2008 mer and the properties of nanocomposite. CNTs were treated with a nonionic surfactant Triton X-100, Received in revised form 9 September 2008 and its effects on dispersion state, surface chemistry, structure and morphology of CNTs, as well as on Accepted 10 September 2008 the thermomechanical, mechanical and electrical properties of CNT/epoxy nanocomposites were evalu- ated. The mechanical properties such as impact fracture toughness, flexural strength and modulus, the thermomechanical properties, as well as the electrical conductivity of the nanocomposite all showed sig- Keywords: nificant improvements after the treatment. The above observations are attributed to the ‘‘bridging” A. Carbon nanotube A. Nonionic surfactant effects between the CNT and epoxy,