Carbon nanotubes (NTs) have novel electronic properties and exceptionally high Young's moduli on the order of TPa. so NTs have potential applications in advanced composite materials such as conductive polymers, electromagnetic-radio frequency interference (EMI/RFI) shielding material and opto-electronic materials. The utility of the nanotubes in composite applications depends strongly on the ability to disperse the NTs homogeneously throughout the matrix without destroying the integrity of the NTs. Furthermore, interfacial bonding between the NT and matrix is necessary to achieve load transfer across the interface, which is desirable for improving the mechanical properties of polymer composites.In this work, aligned multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) produced by continuous chemical vapor deposition (CVD) (see Fig.l), were homogeneously dispersed in polystyrene (PS) matrices by a simple solution-evaporation method. Using this procedure, we made uniform MWNT-PS composite films ∼0.4mm thick for ex-situ mechanical tensile test and very thin films, ∼100nm, for in-situ TEM tests, as shown in Fig.2.
