A preliminary study on the effect of macro cavities formation on properties of carbon nanotube bucky-paper composites

Ludovic Dumée, Kallista Sears, Jürg Schütz, Niall Finn, Mikel Duke, Stephen Gray

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

In this study, we focus on processing and characterizing composite material structures made of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and reproducibly engineering macro-pores inside their structure. Highly porous bucky-papers were fabricated from pure carbon nanotubes by dispersing and stabilizing large 1 μm polystyrene beads within a carbon nanotube suspension. The polystyrene beads, homogeneously dispersed across the thickness of the bucky-papers, were then either dissolved or carbonized to generate macro cavities of different shape and properties. The impact of adding these macro cavities on the porosity, specific surface area and Young's modulus was investigated and some benefits of the macro cavities will be demonstrated.

Original languageBritish English
Pages (from-to)553-561
Number of pages9
JournalMaterials
Volume4
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2010

Keywords

  • Bucky-paper
  • Carbon nanotube
  • Sacrificial beads
  • Tuning porosity

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