Wenjun Ma†#, Luqi Liu‡, Zhong Zhang*‡, Rong Yang#, Gang Liu, Taihua Zhang, Xuefeng An, Xiaosu Yi, Yan Ren†#, Zhiqiang Niu†#, Jinzhu Li†#, Haibo Dong†#, Weiya Zhou†, Pulickel M. Ajayan§ and Sishen Xie*†
Beijing National Laboratory of Condensed Matter, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People’s Republic of China, National Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Beijing 100190, People’s Republic of China, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, State Key Laboratory of Nonlinear Mechanics (LNM), Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People’s Republic of China, National Key Laboratory of Advanced Composites, Beijing Institute of Aeronautical Materials, Beijing 100095, China, and Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, People’s Republic of China
Nano Lett., 2009, 9 (8), pp 2855–2861
DOI: 10.1021/nl901035v
Publication Date (Web): July 8, 2009
Copyright © 2009 American Chemical Society
†Beijing National Laboratory of Condensed Matter, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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#Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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‡National Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.

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* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: zhong.zhang@nanoctr.cn, ssxie@aphy.iphy.ac.cn.

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State Key Laboratory of Nonlinear Mechanics (LNM), Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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Beijing Institute of Aeronautical Materials.

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§Rice University.

Abstract

Abstract Image

Carbon nanotubes have unprecedented mechanical properties as defect-free nanoscale building blocks, but their potential has not been fully realized in composite materials due to weakness at the interfaces. Here we demonstrate that through load-transfer-favored three-dimensional architecture and molecular level couplings with polymer chains, true potential of CNTs can be realized in composites as initially envisioned. Composite fibers with reticulate nanotube architectures show order of magnitude improvement in strength compared to randomly dispersed short CNT reinforced composites reported before. The molecular level couplings between nanotubes and polymer chains results in drastic differences in the properties of thermoset and thermoplastic composite fibers, which indicate that conventional macroscopic composite theory fails to explain the overall hybrid behavior at nanoscale.