Structures, electrical and mechanical properties of epoxy composites reinforced with MWCNT-coated basalt fibers

We report the structures, electrical and mechanical properties of a series of epoxy composites reinforced with multi walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT)-coated basalt fibers. For the purpose, MWCNT-coated basalt fibers were obtained by cyclic dip-dry coating process of neat basalt fibers in an aqueous MWCNT dispersion containing sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) surfactant, and they were composited with epoxy resin by hand lay-up method. The FT-IR and Raman spectroscopic analyses revealed the presence of the specific interactions between MWCNT and basalt fibers via SDS surfactant. Accordingly, the content of MWCNT coated on basalt fibers was measured to increase with the dip-dry coating cycle from 0 to 10. The electrical conductivity of the epoxy composites with MWCNT-coated basalt fibers increased significantly from 3.25 x 10(-9) S/cm to 1.44 x 10(-1) S/cm with increasing the dip-dry coating cycle. The composites with MWCNT-coated basalt fibers fabricated by above 2 cycles of dip-dry coating exhibited excellent electric heating performance in terms of rapid temperature responsiveness, high steady-state maximum temperature, high electric power efficiency, and stable operational stability under applied voltages. In addition, the epoxy composites with MWCNT-coated basalt fibers fabricated by one or two dip-dry coating cycle were found to have highly improved flexural mechanical properties, compared to the epoxy composite reinforced with neat basalt fibers.