Single-walled carbon nanotubes/polycarbonate composites:: basic electrical and mechanical properties

The focus of this paper is to investigate the electrical conductivity and the mechanical properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes/polycarbonate composites. Two different direct incorporating methods were applied. In the first method PC and SWCNTs were mixed with different ratios in a small scale conical twin screw extruder. Here, additional variations in the feeding of the filler material were tested in order to improve the state of dispersion of the melt mixing method. The second one is the coagulation method, here, the filler material was suspended and the polymer material was dissolved in liquid organic substances. The mechanical properties were examined by tension tests and by measuring the Vickers hardness. It should be stressed, that the nanofiller material was provided in large batches (m > 100 g) and extensively mechanically homogenized in order to eliminate quality fluctuations and density differences in the SWCNT occurrences. The filler material was synthesized in a Kratschmer reactor (carbon arc). After homogenization, the nanomaterial was characterized. Based on this the SWCNT content was estimated to be between 30 and 40%, which is usual for arc discharge material. (c) 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.