| AVS 61st International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Plasma Science and Technology | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session PS-TuP |
| Session: | Plasma Science and Technology Poster Session |
| Presenter: | Keiji Nakamura, Chubu University, Japan |
| Authors: | D. Ogawa, Chubu University, Japan K. Nakamura, Chubu University, Japan |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Polymers composited with carbonanotubes (CNTs) have been researched for many years to modify their material properties. This is because a polymer is mechanically soft and electrically insulated. The mix of CNTs is a good idea because CNTs can compensate the weakness of the polymer by making composites.
The functionalization of CNTs is a common technique for their applications due to chemical inertness of CNTs. This is why CNTs are generally difficult to disperse well in a liquid, while CNTs can disperse well after a functionalization. Nitric acid (HNO3) is commonly used to functionalize carboxyl group on CNTs. The functional group is modified to the functional group to fit one’s application. It is reported that plasma can also functionalize CNTs without using the acid by making reactive species generated in plasma.[1]
We want to enhance the mechanical property of polyurethane (PU) film (approximately 100um thickness) through functionalized multi-wall CNTs (MWCNTs). In order to achieve our goal, we created a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) above the CNTs that is located at the bottom of a quartz test tube. The discharge was created with the peak-to-peak voltage at 9 kV, the frequency at 10 kHz, and the discharge pressure at atmospheric pressure. Our process gas was made with a certain combination among argon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen gas depending on the functionalized group we want to attach on the CNTs. Here, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer was used to identify the functional groups attached by plasma discharge. After the plasma treatment, the CNTs were dispersed into a tetrahydrofuran (THF) solvent. The solvent is so versatile because the solvent is miscible to water and dissolvable even to non-polar solution. Some parts of the CNTs were dispersed in a THF solvent so that the concentration of the CNTs in the solvent was found from the transmission of the light at 600 nm. The PU film formed after drying out the mixture of the solvent and the PU solution over night.
In order to evaluate the strength of the PU film, the PU film was rubbed with a sand paper for hours. Here, we compared the wearing rate of the PU film that is defined by dividing the film thickness over the time when the PU film was completely rubbed out. The mechanically stronger the PU polymer is, the more wearing rate was observed.
In the presentation, we will show our recent progresses of the PU film that contains the CNTs functionalized with atmospheric DBD plasma .
[1] A. Felten, C. Bittencourt and J. Pireaux, Nanotechnology 17 (2006) 1954–1959