Alignments of Exfoliated Clay Layers or Carbon Nanotubes in Polymer Nanocomposites Induced by Liquid Crystal Phase

摘要

Recently, polymer-matrix nanocomposites, especially containing clay layers or carbon nanotubes (CNTs), have attracted considerable attention owing to their unique mechanical, and multi-functional properties resulting from the nano-scale microstructure and extremely large interfacial area. To-date, the main challenges are to improve the dispersion or exfoliation, and alignment of clay layers or CNTs in a polymer matrix when processing these nanocomposites. Several review articles [1-4] have summarized the recent progresses in those areas. Due to the unique molecular structure of liquid crystals (LC), the liquid crystalline phase is easy to orient along the applied field, such as force, electric and magnetic fields. Kawasumi et al. [5, 6] prepared a nematic low molar mass liquid crystal/clay composite, and used the low molar mass LC to induce the orientation of clay layers along the direction of low-frequent electric field. Here, we report recent results on shear-induced alignment of exfoliated clay layers and CNTs in polymer matrix nanocomposites via liquid crystalline polymer (LCP) or low molar mass liquid crystal.