Nanoinfiltration behavior of carbon nanotube based nanocomposites with enhanced mechanical and electrical properties

Abstract In this work, carbon nanotube (CNT) based nanocomposites with high mass fraction are proposed by in-situ bridging carbon matrix into CNT paper through optimized chemical vapor infiltration (CVI). Nanoinfiltration behavior of CNTs is basically investigated under the CVI process. The contact between each CNT can be strengthened and the conductive pathways can be established, resulting in the better mechanical and electrical properties. Compared with the pristine CNT paper, the CNT/C composite after pyrolysis process confirms a remarkable advance in tensile strength (up to 310 ± 13 MPa) and Young's modulus (up to 2.4 ± 0.1 GPa). Besides, a notable feature of electrical conductivity also shows an improvement up to 8.5 S/cm, which can be attributed to the mass fraction of CNT (41 wt%) breaking the limits of percolation thresholds and the efficient densification of this sample to establish the conductive pathways. This study has a broad application in the development of the multi-functional electrical and engineering materials.