Fabrication of Aligned CNTs/ Polysulfone Hybrid Nanofibers with Highly Oriented CNTs

摘要

Since the first report on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by Iijima[l], there has been tremendous research improvement on the properties and applications of CNTs, which has made significant improvements in the technology of carbon nanotube-based composites. The optimization of CNTs properties was primarily dependent on several factors: the homogeneous dispersion of CNTs in the host matrix, nature and concentration of the functional groups, nature of the interfacial bonding between CNTs and matrix, aspect ratio (length/diameter) and nanotube loadings [2]. However, the current processing techniques often led to an agglomerated state and a weak interaction between CNTs and matrix. Therefore, in this work, a new dispersing and aligning method of CNTs was developed, which might be favorable to the dispersion and alignment of CNTs in the matrix. CNTs were functionalized with epoxy-based groups, and aligned CNTs/polysulfone(PSF) hybrid nanofibers with highly oriented CNTs were electrospun by a rotating drum collector, and the properties of the hybrid nanofibers were characterized by SEM, TEM and polarized Raman scattering.