Interfacial interaction is one of the most critical issues in carbon nanotube/polymer composites. In this paper the role of nonionic surfactant is investigated. With the surfactant as the processing aid, the addition of only 1 wt % carbon nanotubes in the composite increases the glass transition temperature from 63 °C to 88 °C. The elastic modulus is also increased by more than 30%. In contrast, the addition of carbon nanotubes without the surfactant only has moderate effects on the glass transition temperature and on the mechanical properties. This work points to the pathways to improve dispersion and to modify interfacial bonding in carbon nanotube/polymer composites.

Since the discovery of carbon nanotubes by lijima in 1991, various carbon nanotubes with either a single- or multilayered graphene cylinder(s) have been produced, along with their noncarbon counterparts (for example, inorganic and polymer nanotubes). These nanostructured materials often possess size-dependent properties and show new phenomena related to the nanosize confinement of the charge carriers inside, which leads to the possibility of developing new materials with useful properties and advanced devices with desirable features for a wide range of applications. In particular, carbon nanotubes have been shown to exhibit superior properties attractive for various potential applications, ranging from their use as novel electron emitters in flat-panel displays to electrodes in electrochemical sensors. For many of the applications, it is highly desirable to have aligned/patterned forms of carbon nanotubes so that their structure/property can be easily assessed and so that they can be effectively incorporated into devices. In this Review, we present an overview on the development of aligned and micropatterned nanotubes, with an emphasis on carbon nanotubes.

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