Abstract
This paper investigated the microstructural change of long entangled carbon nanotubes in an epoxy matrix under continuous shear. It was found that a critical composite viscosity is required to effectively separate the entangled nanotubes and align them along the shear direction. The major nanotube separation-alignment in composite processing is reflected by the plateaus on the viscosity variation curve. An improvement of the nanotube dispersion and composite flexural modulus was obtained in aligned MWNTs-epoxy. It was also found that the addition of MWNTs decreases the crosslinking rate of the epoxy.
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Xiao, K.Q., Zhang, L.C. Effective separation and alignment of long entangled carbon nanotubes in epoxy. J Mater Sci 40, 6513–6516 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-005-1601-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-005-1601-z