Buckypapers

Energetic fnllerenes, C60(NO2)i2. consisting of buckyballs, carbon nanotubes, or buckypaper were prepared by Adams (5) and used as explosives. 

Endo M, Muramatsu H, Hayashi T, Kim YA, Terrenes M, Dresselhaus MS. Buckypaper from coaxial nanotubes. Nature 2005 433 476. 

Dynamic mechanical property tests indicated that the storage modulus of the resulting nanocomposites at 20 wt% CNTs loading was improved by a factor of 3.4 compared with neat PC material, as shown in Figure 14.15. It was reported that PC/buckypaper samples... 

Figure 14.14. Impreganated buckypaper (a) impreganated buckypaper sample, (b) SEM image of a cross-section of impreganted buckypaper (79).

CNT buckypaper/epoxy composites was conducted. The tensile test results are shown in the Figure 14.19, and tensile properties were summarized in Figure 14.20. 

For the neat resin, the Young s modulus was about 2GPa and strength 72.5 MPa. For the pristine buckypaper composite, the Young s modulus increased to 4 GPA with the increment of one fold while the tensile strength decreased to 51 MPa with about 13%... 

Figure 14.19. Typical samples and curves of the tensile tests for buckypaper(BP) composites. (p-BP composite pristine CNT buckypaper composites, e-BP composite electron beam treated CNT buckypaper composites (11).)...

The experimental results indicated that the irradiated buckypaper can be applied to fabricate nanocomposites and showed certain improvement in both modulus and strength, which decreased in the un-irradiated buckypaper composites. However, the enhancement was not as striking as expected. More significant improvement should be achieved by increasing the interfacial bonding through removing the unwanted surfactant before e-beam treatment. 

S. Wang, R. Liang, Y. Xue, B. Wang, and C. Zhang, "Functionalization of SWNT buckypapers through electron-beam irradiation", 39,h ISTC - Cincinnati, OH, 2007. 

Another way to produce buckypaper without the dispersion and filtration method is the domino pushing effect . Ding et al present a simple and effective macroscopic manipulation of aligned CNT arrays. The domino pushing of the CNT arrays can efficiently ensure that most of the CNTs are well aligned tightly in the buckypaper structure. 

Buckypaper normally has a laminar structure with the orientations of the bundles of tubes being random in the plane of the sheet. This paper is extremely porous and contains up to 70% free volume. The pore size is theoretically tunable depending on the nanotube size and shape and the casting... 

A similar technique was demonstrated by Wang et al They also fabricated buckypaper but incorporated an epoxy-hardener blend by Buchner filtration. To reduce the viscosity, the blend was mixed with acetone. Very good infiltration was observed throughout the paper. The epoxy was cured by hot pressing 3-5 stacked sheets together at 177 °C to form a thick composite film. 

Mechanical Properties of Composites Prepared Using Buckypaper... 

Yang et al used a low viscosity resin solution which was allowed to infiltrate the buckypapers to impregnate the SWNT rope networks. A hot-press moulding process was used for moulding and euring to produce the final composites. Nanocomposites with preformed tube networks and high SWNT... 

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