Morphology and processing of aligned carbon nanotube carbon matrix nanocomposites

作者：Stein Itai Y^*; Wardle Brian L

来源：Carbon, 2014, 68: 807-813.

DOI：10.1016/j.carbon.2013.12.001

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 similar to 1% aligned CNTs decreased from similar to 61% to similar to 55% 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 similar to 51%), 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.

• 出版日期2014-3
• 单位MIT