Carbon nanotube-filled natural

Koerner, H., Price, G., Pearce, N.A., Alexander, M., Vaia, R.A. (2004) Remotely actuated polymer nanocomposites - stress-recovery of carbon-nanotube-filled thermoplastic elastomers. Nature Materials, 3, 115-120. 

Beigbeder, A., Degee, P., Conlan, S.L, Mutton, R.J., Clare, A.S., Pettitt, M.E., Callow, M.E., Callow, JA., and Dubois, P. (2008) Preparation and characterisation of silicone-based coatings filled with carbon nanotubes and natural sepiolite, and their application as marine fouling-release coatings. Biofoulir, 24, 291-302. 

P. M. Ajayan, T. W. Ebbesen, Ichihashi, S. Ijima, K. Tanigaki, H. Hiura, Opening carbon nanotubes with oxygen and implications for filling, Nature, vol. 362, pp. 522-525,1993. 

Ajayan PM, Lijima S (1993) Capillarity-induced filling of carbon nanotubes. Nature 361(6410) 333-334... 

The pol5mier nanocomposite field has been studied heavily in the past decade. However, polymier nanocomposite technology has been around for quite some time in the form of latex paints, carbon-black filled tires, and other pol5mier systems filled with nanoscale particles. However, the nanoscale interface nature of these materials was not truly understood and elucidated until recently [2 7]. Today, there are excellent works that cover the entire field of polymer nanocomposite research, including applications, with a wide range of nanofillers such as layered silicates (clays), carbon nanotubes/nanofibers, colloidal oxides, double-layered hydroxides, quantum dots, nanocrystalline metals, and so on. The majority of the research conducted to date has been with organically treated, layered silicates or organoclays. 

The capillarity of carbon nanotubes offers two key properties, low chemical reactivity and superior burst strength. The hollow core of a carbon nanotube has been known to suck in water despite the hydrophobic nature of graphite, or molten metal such as lead [17] [52] and it has recently been filled, also by capillary forces, with molten silver nitrate [53]. Only nanotubes with a minimum capillary diameter of 4 nm were required, and found to be chemically less reactive than graphite. This property has been illustrated by monitoring the decomposition of silver nitrate within nanotubes in-situ in an electron microscope. In the nanospace available, chains of silver nanobeads were produced, separated by gas pockets developing gas pressures of up to 1300 bar at room temperature. 

Green MLH et al. Simple chemical method of opening and filling carbon nanotubes. Nature 372 159, 1994. 

Thermal conductivity studies have been conducted on a wide range of filled polymers and composites, including carbon fibers [62-68], aluminum powder [65], nitride [66], magnetite, barite, talc, copper, strontium ferrite [67], glass fiber-filled polypropylene and manganese or iron-filled polyaniline, carbon nanotubes [68], and nickel-cobalt-zinc ferrite in natural rubber [70]. 

The viscoelastic properties of natural rubber (NR) nanocomposites filled with silica/multiwall carbon nanotube hybrid fillers have been studied by H. Ismail et al. [46]. The addition of hybrid fillers (MWCNTs-i-silica) to the NR matrix... 

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