Carbon nanotube-reinforced smart composites for sensing freezing temperature and deicing by self-heating

Abstract

Carbon nanotube-reinforced polymer composites were fabricated by high shear mixing. The microstructure and the electrical properties of the carbon nanotube-polymer composites were investigated by scanning electron microscopy and electrical resistance measurement. We found that the carbon nanotube composites showed high electrical conductivity (1.5 S m À1) at 7.0 wt% of carbon nanotubes, and the increase in thickness enhanced the electrical conductivity of the composites. The multifunctional properties of the carbon nanotube composites were also investigated for use in sensing the freezing temperature and also in deicing by self-heating. The results showed that the carbon nanotube-polymer composites had high temperature sensitivity in the freezing temperature range from À5 to 5 C and an excellent heating performance due to the Joule heating effect. The carbon nanotube composites are promising to be used as smart coating materials for deicing by self-heating as well as by detection of the freezing temperature.

Photocurrents Recovery in GaN UV Sensors Using Microheaters at Low Temperatures

“…It should be noted that similar trends of photocurrent and temperature plots were investigated during the initial, cooling, and recovery stages, although a sensing voltage of 1 V was applied constantly. In addition, because the device temperature was changed by the Joule heating effect from the microheater, the restoring current plot was fitted using the following equation [31], [32] for additional analysis of the recovery stage with least square curve fitting.…”

Smart Coatings with Carbon Nanoparticles

“…Coatings based on CNT/PDMS were manufactured and showed an effect-denominated negative temperature coefficient (NTC). This effect on electrical response was nonlinear with temperature changes, being the sensitivity more than six times higher in the range À5 to 5°C than at room temperature, which makes them potential candidates for temperature measurement for smart coatings being able to detect temperature and activate the voltage required accordingly [60].…”

Smart polymer nanocomposites: A review

“…Smart materials are attracting increasing interest especially in the era of the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) and circular economy. Smart polymer nanocomposites (SPN) which can be derived from shape memory polymer [3][4][5][6], stimuli-active polymers [7], smart electrorheological (ER) and magnetorheological (MR) polymer [8][9][10][11], self-healing polymer [12,13], self-cleaning polymer [14][15][16][17], self-heating polymer [18], self-sensing polymer [19], energy-harvesting and energy storage polymer [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] are the latest hot research topics. The addition of nanofiller can increase the performance of the SPN (e.g., shape fixity, shape recovery, self-healing ability) due to their high specific surface area, nucleating effects, reinforcing effects, and inherent functionalities (e.g., thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity) [3].…”