• Fibers and Polymers
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.59-67
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• 2004

The development of high tenacity, high modulus monofilaments from Polypropylene/Clay nanocomposite has been investigated. Pure sodium montmorillonite nanoclay was modified using hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (HTAB) via an ion exchange reaction. Pure and modified clay were characterized through X-ray diffraction, FTIR and TGA. The modified clay was melt blended with polypropylene (PP) in presence of a swelling agent. Composite filaments from PP/Clay nanocomposite were prepared at different weight percentages of nanoclay and the spinning and drawing conditions were optimized. The filaments were characterized for their mechanical, morphological and thermal properties. The composite PP filaments with modified clay showed improved tensile strength, modulus and reduced elongation at break. The composite filaments with unmodified clay did not show any improvement in tensile strength but the modulus improved. The sharp and narrow X-ray diffraction peaks of PP/nanoclay composite filaments indicate increase in crystallinity in presence of modified clay at small loadings (0.5 %). The improved thermal stability was observed in filaments with modified as well as unmodified clays.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.224-224
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• 2012

For decades, carbon fiber has expanded their application fields from reinforced composites to energy storage and transfer technologies such as electrodes for super-capacitors and lithium ion batteries and gas diffusion layers for proton exchange membrane fuel cell. Especially in fuel cell, water repellency of gas diffusion layer has become very important property for preventing flooding which is induced by condensed water could damage the fuel cell performance. In this work, we fabricated superhydrophobic network of carbon fiber with high aspect ratio hair-like nanostructure by preferential oxygen plasma etching. Superhydrophobic carbon fiber surfaces were achieved by hydrophobic material coating with a siloxane-based hydrocarbon film, which increased the water contact angle from $147^{\circ}$ to $163^{\circ}$ and decreased the contact angle hysteresis from $71^{\circ}$ to below $5^{\circ}$, sufficient to cause droplet roll-off from the surface in millimeter scale water droplet deposition test. Also, we have explored that the condensation behavior (nucleation and growth) of water droplet on the superhydrophobic carbon fiber were significantly retarded due to the high-aspect-ratio nanostructures under super-saturated vapor conditions. It is implied that superhydrophobic carbon fiber can provide a passage for vapor or gas flow in wet environments such as a gas diffusion layer requiring the effective water removal in the operation of proton exchange membrane fuel cell. Moreover, such nanostructuring of carbon-based materials can be extended to carbon fiber, carbon black or carbon films for applications as a cathode in lithium batteries or carbon fiber composites.