Electric field effects on CNTs/vinyl ester suspensions and the resulting electrical and thermal composite properties

WOS: 000283759400010
In this study, electrical conductivity of a vinyl ester based composite containing low content (0.05, 0.1 and 0.3 wt.%) of double and multi-walled carbon nanotubes with and without amine functional groups (DWCNTs, MWCNTs, DWCNT-NH2 and MWCNT-NH2) was investigated. The composite with pristine MWCNTs was found to exhibit the highest electrical conductivity. Experiments aimed to induce an aligned conductive network with application of an alternating current (AC) electric field during cure were carried out on the resin suspensions with MWCNTs. Formation of electric anisotropy within the composite was verified. Light microscopy (LM), scanning electron (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were conducted to visualize dispersion state and the extent of alignment of MWCNTs within the polymer cured with and without application of the electric field. To gain a better understanding of electric field induced effects, glass transition temperature (T-g) of the composites was measured via Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). It was determined that at 0.05 wt.% loading rate of MWCNTs, the composites, cured with application of the AC electric field, possessed a higher T-g than the composites cured without application of the AC electric field
TUBITAK of Turkey; BMBF of Germany [5]
The authors acknowledge TUBITAK of Turkey and BMBF of Germany for the financial support under Project No.: 5 and Poliya Polyester A.S., Istanbul for providing us with the resins used in this study. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Josef Kovacs for his valuable help in the construction of the experimental set up used to align CNTs within the polymer. The authors would also like to thank Prof. Dr. H. Mehtap Kutlu for her fruitful discussion and comments on preparation of TEM thin polymer samples.