carbon fiberepoxy composite property enhancement through incorporation of carbon nanotubes at the fiber–matrix interphase – part i the development of carbon nanotube coated carbon fibers and the e...pdf

Composites: Part A 43 (2012) 1569–1577 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Composites: Part A journal homepage: /lo cate/compositesa Carbon fiber/epoxy composite property enhancement through incorporation of carbon nanotubes at the fiber–matrix interphase – Part I: The development of carbon nanotube coated carbon fibers and the evaluation of their adhesion Toshiya Kamae, Lawrence T. Drzal ⇑ Composite Materials and Structures Center, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1226, United States a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: A new method to realize the uniform coating of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to carbon fibers (CFs) has been Received 22 March 2011 developed, which enables the scalable fabrication of CNT containing CF/epoxy composites. In this Received in revised form 24 February 2012 method, CNTs are treated by cationic polymers, then, the CNTs are coated to CFs by immersion into a Accepted 25 February 2012 CNT/water suspension. Good dispersion is achieved by repulsive force between positively charged CNTs Available online 24 April 2012 and uniform coating of the CNTs is achieved by attractive forces between positively charged CNTs and negatively charged CFs. It is found that the use of specific cationic polymers including polyethyleneimine Keywords: (PEI) results in stable CNT/water suspensions, and uniform coating of the CNTs. Single fib