Single-walled Carbon Nanotubes Dispersed by CO2 Responsive Surfactants for Fabricating High Conductive Epoxy Composites

Graphical The single-walled carbon nanotubes dispersed by an extremely rigid CO 2 -responsive surfactant were used to fabricate highly conductive epoxy composites with ultra-strong mechanical properties. The emerging nanomaterials single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNTs) with large specific surface area, excellent electrical conductivity and high mechanical strength, has been used to fabricate electronic devices. However, the extremely strong π-π interactions make SWNTs easy to agglomerate, thus limiting their application. In this work, a novel method was applied to disperse SWNTs by using rigid rosin-based CO 2 responsive surfactant rosin acid dimaleimide choline (R-BMI-C). When pH 10.4, SWNTs can be uniformly and stably dispersed, and at pH 6.3, SWNTs aggregated. The dispersed SWNTs was then integrated into diglycidyl ether of bis phenol A (DGEBA) to fabricate high conductive epoxy composites. Their properties were characterized by SEM, TG, high resistivity meters, etc. . The results showed that the modified SWNTs/DGEBA composites obtained an ultra-low percolation threshold (0.025 wt.%). Compared with the original SWNTs/DGEBA composite, its tensile strength and elastic modulus were enhanced by 17 % and 96 %, respectively, when the SWNTs content was 0.5 wt.%.