1. Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Polymer, Textile, and Fiber Engineering, 801 Ferst Drive NW, MRDC‐1, Atlanta, GA 30332‐0295, USA;2. Current address: Intel Corporation, Portland Technology Development, Hillsboro, OR, USA;3. Northeastern University, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, 334 Snell Engineering Center, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115‐5000, USA
Abstract:
Conventional dry‐jet wet fiber spinning techniques were used to fabricate continuous PAN/MWNT composite fibers with up to 20 wt.‐% nanotube loading. PAN at the MWNT interface exhibited lower solubility under thermodynamically favorable conditions than in bulk PAN, indicating good interfacial interaction. Due to the PAN/MWNT interaction at the interface, thermal shrinkage decreases with increasing MWNT loading (5 to 20 wt.‐%). For high MWNT loadings, PAN/MWNT composite fiber at 15 wt.‐% MWNT loading showed an axial electrical conductivity of 1.24 S · m?1. For all loadings, PAN/MWNT composite fibers exhibited higher tensile moduli than theoretically predicted by rule‐of‐mixture calculations, suggesting good reinforcement of the PAN by MWNT.
