“…Functionalization of CNTs in acids before introduction to Cu salts in an ethanol solution has been shown to achieve a homogeneous mixture of CNTs/Cu, as a precursor to forming CNT/Cu powder for later sintering, by the so called molecular level mixing method (e.g., Cha et al, 2005;Kim et al, 2007Kim et al, , 2008Kim et al, , 2011. However, considerable agglomeration of CNTs is typically reported as a problem of high temperature methods, when the nanotube fraction increases beyond ~1-2 wt% (e.g., Huang et al 2017;Deng et al 2017;Daoush et al, 2009;Nayan et al, 2017), which also leads to increased porosity of the composite (Guiderdoni et al, 2013). Mechanical dispersion of CNTs with copper requires considerable energy, which could deteriorate the CNT quality by shortening and causing curvature of the tubes (Tan et al, 2006;Nayan et al, 2017).…”