Processing Carbon Nanotube / Thermoplastic Composites: Methods to Improve Nanotube Dispersion and Alignment for Greater Mechanical Strength

Carbon nanotube (CNT)/thermoplastic composites have many potential applications. However, processing CNT/thermoplastic composites has been extremely challenging due to the nano scale of CNT and their inherently strong affinity to themselves. Two major issues in processing CNT/thermoplastic composites for enhanced mechanical properties are achieving uniform dispersion and producing alignment of the nanotubes in the polymer matrix. This book presents an approach that used a combination of surfactant- aided mixing, extrusion, and various drawing processing techniques to successfully obtain significant improvement of nanotube dispersion and alignment in a semi-crystalline polymer matrix. The processing techniques used were relatively simple without the requirement of sophisticated equipment, making low-cost and easy commercial processing a possibility. This book also provided a practical method for dispersion and alignment measurement that correlated with the material strength.