High-Performance Multifunctional Thermoplastic Composites Enhanced by Aligned Buckypaper

High-performance lightweight composites are sizably manufactured by impregnating continuous aligned carbon nanotube sheet (buckypapers) with self-reinforcing polyphenylene (Parmax) solution and followed by hot-press. The high processing pressure flattens nanotubes, which preferably pi-stack with the aromatic rings of Parmax chain, and accordingly improve the load transfer. Both tensile strength and Young's modulus of the thermoplastic composites increase with the alignment degree of nanotubes, and can reach 950 MPa and 94 GPa, respectively, for the composite containing 50%-stretched buckypaper. The highly aligned nanotubes also boost phonon transfer (70 Wm K-1) and the electric conductivity (425 S cm(-1)) of the composite along the alignment direction. These combined outstanding properties would enable the thermoplastic composites in wide applications as multifunctional material.