Study of mechanical anisotropy of single walled carbon nanotube and polyvinyl alcohol polymer nanocomposite with a controlled alignment process

Abstract

Single Walled Carbon Nanotube (SWCNT) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) Polymer nanocomposites with the controlled mechanical alignment process have been used for structural anisotropy applications due to their desirable thermal and mechanical properties as well as their tunable degradability. In this work, we fabricated the nanocomposite scaffolds from forming hydrogels of individually dispersed SWCNTs and then partial backfilling with PVA polymer. Our fabrication method helps to minimize the aggregation of SWCNT and improve the degree of uniform dispersion of SWCNT in the polymer matrix. We further compared the mechanical properties in both directions of nanocomposite with different SWCNTs concentration. We observed that the tensile modulus increases more in the aligned direction than the normal to direction of SWCNTs at optimum 12wt% nanotube loading. Further, the nanotube networks suppress the polymer glass transition and extend the mechanical integrity of the polymer. The controlling internal orientation order of nanotubes with the help of alignment process in nanocomposite scaffolds can bring interesting highly structural anisotropic properties to a wide range of smart material industries such as aerospace, defense, and healthcare.