Department of Mechanical Engineering, McGill University, 817 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, QC H3A 2K6, Canada.
Nanotechnology. 2012 Aug 10;23(31):315701. doi: 10.1088/0957-4484/23/31/315701. Epub 2012 Jul 13.
In this paper, the dispersion stability of multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) mixed with an epoxy resin is studied. An instrumented optical microscope with a hot stage was used to study the evolution of the carbon nanotubes (CNTs) dispersion during the cure of the resin. A new image processing approach is then introduced to quantify dispersion and identify the source of dispersion degradation during the cure. The results showed that the reduction of the resin viscosity at temperatures greater than 100 °C caused an irreversible re-agglomeration of the CNTs in the matrix. It was shown that the fine-tuning of the ratio and type of curing agent as well as the curing temperature directly affect the dispersion stability of MWNTs in the epoxy polymer. The dispersion quality was then directly correlated to the fracture toughness of the modified resin and a maximum of 20% improvement was achieved.
本文研究了多壁碳纳米管（MWNTs）与环氧树脂混合后的分散稳定性。采用带有热台的光学显微镜研究了在树脂固化过程中碳纳米管（CNTs）分散体的演变。然后引入了一种新的图像处理方法来量化分散体并确定在固化过程中分散体降解的来源。结果表明，在高于 100°C 的温度下降低树脂的粘度会导致 CNT 在基质中发生不可逆的再团聚。结果表明，固化剂的比例和类型以及固化温度的精细调整直接影响 MWNTs 在环氧树脂中的分散稳定性。分散体的质量与改性树脂的断裂韧性直接相关，可提高 20%。
