Polyethylene / Carbon Nanotubes Nanocomposites

摘要

In this work, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT), long single-walled carbon nanotubes (1-SWNT) and short single-walled carbon nanotubes (s-SWNT) were used to prepare nanocomposites based on high density polyethylene (HDPE) with the use of high density polyethylene grafted with maleic anhydride (HDPE-g-MA) as compatibilizer. The carbon nanotube dispersion was evaluated at the micrometric level by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and at the nanometric level by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The thermal and mechanical properties were respectively determined by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and by dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA).formulations based on s-SWNTs were found to lead to the coarsest dispersion. This could be related to the fact that the shorter length of those nanotubes impedes their pull-out from the micro-aggregates during compounding.In a future work, an adequate functionalization of carbon nanotubes will be performed in order to improve both dispersion and interfacial adhesion, which is a key parameter of successful nanocomposites.