In Situ Polymerized pCBT Composites with Aligned Carbon Nanotube Buckypaper: Structure and Properties

High-performance carbon-nanotube-based thermoplastic composites are synthesized through in situ polymerization of cyclic butylene terephthalate (pCBT) on aligned carbon nanotube buckypaper. The initial results show that the buckypaper/pCBT composites have a tensile strength of approximately 600 MPa and a modulus of 96 GPa due to the aligned nanotubes in the composite acting as a framework and the in situ polymerization resulting in increased interfacial interactions between the pCBT chains and nanotubes. The buckypaper/pCBT composites also demonstrate significantly improved thermal (70 W m(-1) degrees C-1) and electric conductivities (526 S cm(-1)), as well as thermoelectric power (Seebeck coefficient of 64 V degrees C-1). With low mass density, these combined excellent multi-properties indicate that the composites can act as multifunctional materials in numerous applications.