Fabrication of Submicron Thermosetting Carbon Nanotube-Epoxy Fibers Using Electrospinning

Abstract

Recently epoxy-based nanocomposites are gaining tremendous attention in many structural applications such as those in aerospace, automotive and motorsports. This research represents a new approach to fabricate submicron thermoset epoxy filaments enhanced with carbon nanotubes (CNT), through optimized curing followed by an electrospinning process. The optimized curing process is based on the uniform mixing of CNT with epoxy, and partial curing of the CNT/epoxy mixture with the hardener through a thermal treatment without adding any plasticizers or thermoplastic binders. Later the fibers have been made by electrospinning of the semi-cured mixture. Fig 1 shows the fabrication process of the described filaments. The key goal is to make the thermosetting epoxy without adding any thermoplastic to keep the integrity and quality of the fibers. The diameters of these filaments can be tuned between 100 nm to 500nm. Further, the CNT structure has been aligned inside the filament structure by the presence of the electrostatic field during the electrospinning process results in better stability and smaller diameters for the fibers. The fabricated filaments show that adding a low amount of CNT in the epoxy structure, better structural, electrical and thermal stability, has been achieved.