Magnetorheology of single-walled nanotube dispersions

Stable homogeneous aqueous colloidal dispersion of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) was prepared by using sodium salt dodecylbenzene sulfateas dispersing agent. Both strain amplitude and frequency sweep modes were employed to investigate the effect of magnetic fields on their viscoelastic properties by using a parallel-plate rheometer. The experimental results demonstrated that such materials exhibit magnetorheology, whose storage modulus and loss modulus show an increasing trend with magnetic field. The network microstructure was employed to explain the effect of magnet field on the magnetorheological properties. In addition, these results are expected to develop novel SWNT based magnetorheological fluids. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.