Polyethylene multiwalled carbon nanotube composites

Influence of carbon nanotube–polymeric compatibilizer masterbatches on morphological, thermal, mechanical, and tribological properties of polyethylene

“…Incorporation of CNTs into PEgMA and HDPE-PEgMA increased the decomposition temperature (over 10 °C for 6 wt.% CNT addition to HDPEPEgMA) indicating that the presence of CNTs hinders the decomposition at high temperatures. Increase of the decomposition temperature of polyethylene by the addition of nanotubes has been reported earlier [18][19]41]. We observed only slight changes in crystallinity, melting temperature, and crystallization temperature when CNTs were added to PEgMA and HDPE-PEgMA.…”

“…We observed only slight changes in crystallinity, melting temperature, and crystallization temperature when CNTs were added to PEgMA and HDPE-PEgMA. In line with this, other research groups have reported slight or no change in the thermal properties of PE-CNT composites prepared by melt compounding [8,[18][19]21]. Crystallinity of PEgMA was over 10% higher than that of HDPE.…”

“…Increase in Young's modulus [8,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] and decrease in elongation at break [8,12,14,[18][19][20] have frequently been reported for CNT-polyethylene nanocomposites.…”

“…Thermal properties such as melting and crystallization temperatures and crystallinity are reported to change slightly or not at all upon CNT addition [8,[15][16][17][18][19]21]. Besides mechanical properties, thermal expansion and tribological behavior of composites are critical factors in many applications.…”

Effect of processing conditions on the structure, electrical and mechanical properties of melt mixed high density polyethylene/multi-walled CNT composites in compression molding

“…The presence of numerous CNT agglomerates can result in rather poor mechanical and electrical properties, thus uniform dispersion of CNTs is a significant pre-requisite for success in fabricating polymer/CNT nanocomposites with desirable properties [8]. In general, there are three main approaches to preparing polymer/CNT nanocomposites: in situ polymerization [9], solution mixing [10] and melt mixing [11], in which melt mixing is a simpler and more effective method, particularly from an industrial perspective [12]. In recent years, many studies on the melt mixing of CNTs into polymers have been carried out which indicate that the mixing effectiveness and the dispersion of CNTs depend on many factors including the affinity between CNTs and polymer [13], polymer viscosity [14], CNTs concentration [15], residence time [15], screw speed [15] [16] and screw configuration [17].…”