Morphology and processing of aligned carbon nanotube carbon matrix nanocomposites

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• 作者：Itai Y. Stein ; Brian L. Wardle
• 刊名：Carbon
• 出版年：March, 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：68
• 期：Complete
• 页码：807-813
• 全文大小：1605 K

文摘

Intrinsic and scale-dependent properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have led aligned CNT architectures to emerge as promising candidates for next-generation multifunctional applications. Enhanced operating regimes motivate the study of CNT-based aligned nanofiber carbon matrix nanocomposites (CNT A-CMNCs). However, in order to tailor the material properties of CNT A-CMNCs, porosity control of the carbon matrix is required. Such control is usually achieved via multiple liquid precursor infusions and pyrolyzations. Here we report a model that allows the quantitative prediction of the CNT A-CMNC density and matrix porosity as a function of number of processing steps. The experimental results indicate that the matrix porosity of A-CMNCs comprised of 鈭?% aligned CNTs decreased from 鈭?1% to 鈭?5% after a second polymer infusion and pyrolyzation. The model predicts that diminishing returns for porosity reduction will occur after 4 processing steps (matrix porosity of 鈭?1%), and that >10 processing steps are required for matrix porosity <50%. Using this model, prediction of the processing necessary for the fabrication of liquid precursor derived A-CMNC architectures, with possible application to other nanowire/nanofiber systems, is enabled for a variety of high value applications.