Electrical conductivity and Raman imaging of double wall carbon nanotubes in a polymer matrix

Victoria Tishkova (1) , Pierre-Ivan Raynal (1) , Pascal Puech (1) , Antoine Lonjon (2) , Marion Le Fournier (2) , Philippe Demont (2) , Emmanuel Flahaut (2) , Wolfgang Bacsa (1)

1 CEMES - Centre d'élaboration de matériaux et d'études structurales
2 CIRIMAT - Centre interuniversitaire de recherche et d'ingenierie des matériaux

Raman spectroscopy is used to access the dispersion state of DWNTs in a PEEK polymer matrix. The interaction of the outer tube with the matrix can be determined from the line shape of the Raman G band. This allows us to distinguish regions where the nanotubes are well dispersed and regions where the nanotubes are agglomerated. The percolation threshold of the electrical conductivity of the double wall carbon nanotubes (DWNTs)/PEEK nanocomposites is found to be at 0.2-0.3 wt.%. We find a maximum electrical conductivity of 3 x 10-2 S/cm at 2 wt.% loading. We detect nanotube weight concentrations as low as 0.16 wt.% by Raman spectroscopy using a yellow excitation wavelength. We compare the Raman images with transmission electron microscopy images and electrical conductivity measurements. A statistical method is used to find a quantitative measure of the DWNTs dispersion in the polymer matrix from the Raman images.

Mots clés: Carbon nanotubes; Particle-reinforced composites; Polymer-matrix composites (PMCs); Electrical properties; Raman spectroscopy

Domaines: Matériaux

Victoria Tishkova, Pierre-Ivan Raynal, Pascal Puech, Antoine Lonjon, Marion Le Fournier, et al.. Electrical conductivity and Raman imaging of double wall carbon nanotubes in a polymer matrix. Composites Science and Technology, 2011, 71, pp.1326-1330. ⟨10.1016/j.compscitech.2011.05.001⟩. ⟨hal-00727199⟩