Preparation and properties of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane and carbon nanotube grafted carbon fiber hierarchical reinforcing structure

A novel route of grafting carbon nanotubes onto carbon fibers using polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes as coupling agents was reported. The fiber tensile strength did not show any discernable decrease. The content of surface functional groups sharply increased, and the interfacial adhesion of the resulting composites showed a dramatic improvement.