Electrospun nanofibers of poly(methyl methacrylate)/multi-walled carbon nanotube composites

초록

Electronic properties of the perfect multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) are known to be similar to the single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) due to the one-dimensional electronic structure and the electronic transport characteristics. Since the carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are extremely flexible and show high aspect ratio as filaments, it is extremely difficult to align and disperse the CNTs by using the ordinary composite fabrication methods. CNTs generally form stabilized bundles due to van der Waals force, resulting in the formation of hollow ropes. Obtaining a good dispersion of CNTs is known to be one of the key issues in using CNTs in composites.1,2 Electrospinning is a fast and simple process driven by the electrical forces on the surface of the polymeric fluids, producing polymer filaments using an electrostatic force.3-5 In this work, MWNTs were embedded and aligned in poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) nanofibers via an electrospinning process. The dispersion characteristics were improved via a bulk polymerization of PMMA in the presence of MWNTs.6 Contrary to the previous works on electrospinning using a simple blend of CNT with polymeric materials, we incorporated CNTs as nanoscale fillers by in-situ polymerizing MMA. We also investigated morphology and the electrical conductivity of the electrospun nanofibers with aligned MWNTs in PMMA (Figure 1).