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    Effect of additives on MWCNT dispersion and electrical percolation in polyamide 12 composites
    (Melville, NY : AIP, 2017) Socher, Robert; Krause, Beate; Pötschke, Petra
    The aim of this study was to decrease the electrical percolation threshold of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) in a polyamide 12 matrix by the use of additives. Different kinds of additives were selected which either interact with the π-system of the MWCNTs (imidazolium based ionic liquid (IL) and perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic dianhydride (PTCDA)) or improve the MWCNT wettability (cyclic butylene terephthalate, CBT). The composites were melt mixed using a DACA microcompounder. The electrical percolation threshold for PA12/MWCNT without additives, measured on compression molded plates, was found between 2.0 and 2.25 wt%. With all used additives, a significant reduction of the electrical percolation threshold could be achieved. Whereas the addition of IL and CBT resulted in MWCNT percolation at around 1.0 wt%, a slightly higher percolation threshold between 1.0 and 1.5 wt% was found for PTCDA as an additive. Interestingly, the electrical resistivity at higher loadings was decreased by nearly two decades when using CBT and one decade after application of PTCDA, whereas IL did not contribute to lower values in this range. In all cases macrodispersion as assessed by light microscopy was not improved and even worse as compared to non-modified composites. In summary, the results illustrate that these kinds of additives are able to improve the performance of PA12 based MWCNT nanocomposites.
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    PP/SWCNT composites modified with ionic liquid
    (Melville, NY : AIP, 2017) Krause, Beate; Predtechenskiy, M.; Ilin, E.; Pötschke, Petra
    Polypropylene composites filled with singlewalled carbon nanotubes TUBALL® (SWCNTs) were studied with regard to the effect of ionic liquid (IL) addition in different SWCNT:IL ratios (1:0.5 - 1:6). The incorporation of IL leads to a decrease of the electrical percolation threshold and already at 0.025 wt% SWCNT loading reduced resistivity values can be observed. However, the SWCNT macro dispersion, already relatively good without IL, was not affected by the IL incorporation. In addition, the nucleation effect of the SWCNT in polypropylene is not influenced when simultaneously adding IL, whereas the crystallization enthalpy slightly decreases with its addition.
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    Polymer - Carbon nanotube composites for thermoelectric applications
    (Melville, NY : AIP, 2017) Luo, J.; Krause, Beate; Pötschke, Petra
    The thermoelectric (TE) performance of electrically conductive thermoplastic composites prepared by melt mixing was investigated. A cost effective widely used in industry polymer, namely polypropylene (PP), was chosen as the matrix to fabricate the composites. Singlewalled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), the amount (2 wt%) of which was selected to be above the electrical percolation threshold (< 0.2 wt%), were used to form an electrical conducting network. Besides as-produced SWCNTs plasma modified tubes were employed to study the influence of the functionalization on the morphology, dispersion and TE properties of the PP composites. In addition, melt processing conditions, e.g. temperature, rotation speed, and time during mixing in a small-scale compounder were varied. Furthermore, an ionic liquid (IL, 1-methyl-3-octylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate) was used as a processing additive during melt mixing, which was confirmed to improve the electrical conductivity of the composites. Simultaneous increase in the Seebeck coefficient up to a value of 64 μV/K was recorded, leading to a much better power factor of 0.26 μW/(m·K2) compared to composites without IL. This melt mixing strategy opens new avenues for solvent-free, large scale fabrication of polymer based TE materials.