Filament stretching of carbon nanotube suspensions.

Abstract  This paper reports the application of a recently developed filament stretching protocol for the study of the extensional rheology of both treated and untreated carbon nanotubes (CNT) suspended within an epoxy resin. It was experimentally observed that filaments formed by treated and untreated CNT suspensions behaved differently after initial stretching. The filament thinning process of the base epoxy was consistent with a simple Newtonian fluid, whilst the filament of treated CNT suspensions also thinned in a Newtonian way but with an enhanced extensional viscosity. Filaments formed with untreated CNT suspensions behaved in a non-uniform way with local fluctuation in filament diameter, and it was not possible to obtain reliable extensional viscosity data. Irregularity of the untreated CNT filaments was consistent with coupled optical images, where spatial variation in CNT aggregate concentration was observed. In the case of treated CNT suspensions, the enhanced extensional viscosity was modelled in terms of the alignment of CNTs in the stretching direction, and the degree of alignment was subsequently estimated using a simple orientation model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]