For developing high performance carbon nanotube-reinforced polymer composites, uniform nanotube dispersion, good nanotube/matrix wetting and interfacial bonding, controlled alignment and high tube loading are critical issues. A novel technical approach using a unique buckypaper/resin infiltration method has been developed at Florida Advanced Center of Composite Technologies (FAC2T) to fabricate nanocomposites with controlled tube dispersion, orientation, and high SWNT loading. Buckypapers are thin membranes or films of preformed networks of well-dispersed SWNTs. The preformed SWNT networks are eventually transformed in the nanocomposites to construct final nanostructures in the materials. Therefore, quality buckypapers are vital for developing high performance nanocomposites. This research focuses on systematically investigating buckypaper fabrication process and characterizing the resulting buckypapers for better understanding the process and building databases of both randomly oriented and magnetically aligned buckypaper materials. The results show that the formation of buckypaper during suspension filtration can be divided into three stages: free deposition, network formation and thickness build-up. Each stage has different filtration flow rate. The results also indicated that the average thickness, weight, and area density of the aligned buckypapers are smaller than that of the random buckypapers, while the average cubic density of the aligned buckypapers is higher than that of the random buckypapers. Due to possible re-assembly of nanotubes during magnetic alignment, the average rope size of the aligned buckypapers is larger than that of the random buckypapers, and its nanostructure also has relatively larger average pore size. Furthermore, the study of cleaning residual surfactant in the produced buckypapers was also conducted. The results show 70% of the surfactant can be removed by using the proposed cleaning method. / A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Industrial Engineering in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirement for Degree of Master of Science. / Summer Semester, 2005. / June 30, 2005. / Buckypaper, Nanotube / Includes bibliographical references. / Zhiyong Liang, Professor Directing Thesis; Ben Wang, Committee Member; Okenwa Okoli, Committee Member; Chuck Zhang, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_175876 |
| Contributors | Lin, Chih-Yen (authoraut), Liang, Zhiyong (professor directing thesis), Wang, Ben (committee member), Okoli, Okenwa (committee member), Zhang, Chuck (committee member), Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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