Chinese ink-facilitated fabrication of carbon nanotube/polyvinyl alcohol composite sheets with a high nanotube loading

• Main Authors: Yan, W. L., Dasari, A., Kong, Ling Bing
• Other Authors: School of Materials Science & Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Materials::Nanostructured materials
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/101599; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/24177
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Fabricating carbon nanotube-based composites requires high degree of dispersion of carbon nanotubes into a polymer matrix. The widely used approaches reported in open literature for such a purpose are usually complicated and high-cost. Herein, we found that Chinese ink could be used to prepare composites composed of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). The Chinese ink acted as a solvent and a dispersant. The MWCNT-ink-PVA ternary composite possessed both high flexibility and high electrical conductivity, with an optimized electrical conductivity of 8.17 S cm−1. This simple method is believed to be applicable to other nanosacle carbon materials.