• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.95-101
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• 2015

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are widely used in polymer composites as filler materials to enhance various characteristics of the composites because of their remarkable mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties. In this study, we investigate the effects of MWCNTs on the electrical and wear characteristics of high-impact polystyrene (HIPS) composites, and compare the results with the effects of carbon black (CB). The HIPS composites are classified as Bare-HIPS, MWCNT-HIPS composites containing 2, 3, 4, and 5 wt% MWCNTs, and CB-HIPS containing 17 wt% CB. Electrical characteristics are evaluated by measuring the surface resistance using a 4-point probe. Wear characteristics are evaluated using the reciprocating wear test, and a chrome steel ball with a curvature of 6.3 mm is used as the counterpart. The results show that the addition of MWCNTs or CB can improve the electrical and wear characteristics of HIPS composites. In the case of MWCNT-HIPS composites, surface resistance, friction coefficient, and specific wear rate decrease as the concentrations of MWCNTs increase. Moreover, the addition of MWCNTs is more effective in improving the electrical and wear characteristics of HIPS composites compared to the addition of CB. To fabricate the HIPS composite with appropriate electrical and wear characteristics, more than 4 wt% MWCNTs is added to HIPS.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.278-283
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• 2014

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are used in various composite materials to enhance electrical, thermal and mechanical properties of composite materials. In this study, we investigate the wear characteristics of polycarbonate/acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (PC/ABS) blends containing multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). PC/ABS blends are commonly used in many industrial applications such as cellular phones and display cases and MWCNTs have been added to the PC/ABS blends to improve their electromagnetic interference shielding (EMS). We performed wear tests on PC/ABS blends containing MWCNTs under reciprocating linear sliding conditions with chrome steel balls as a counterpart material. The normal loads were 10, 30, 50, 70, 100 N, the sliding speed was 10 mm/s, the stroke length was 15 mm, and the tests lasted 900 s. The MWCNTs included in the PC/ABS blends lower the wear volume and friction coefficient of the composites. We analyzed the wear debris collected from the composites during the tests in terms of the MWCNT concentration using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy. The results show that the quantity of MWCNTs in the debris is proportional to the concentration of MWCNTs in the composite, indicating that the exposure of the MWCNTs to environments by wear could be increased with their concentration in the composite.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.26-26
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• 2009

Vertically aligned arrays of mm-long multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) on Si substrates have been synthesized by water-assisted thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD). The growth of CNTs was investigated by changing the experimental parameters such as growth temperature, growth time, gas composition, annealing time, catalyst thickness, and Al underlayer thickness. The 0.5-nm-thick Fe served as catalyst, underneath which Al was coated as a catalyst support as well as a diffusion barrier on the Si substrate. We grew CNTs by adding a little amount of water vapor to enhance the activity and the lifetime of the catalyst. Al was very good at producing the nm-size catalyst particles by preventing "Ostwald ripening". The Al underlayer was varied over the range of 15~40 nm in thickness. The optimum conditions for the synthesis parameters were as follows: pressure of 95 torr, growth temperature of $815^{\circ}C$, growth for 30 min, 60 sccm Ar + 60 sccm $H_2$ + 20 sccm $C_2H_2$. The water vapor also had a great effect on the growth of CNTs. CNTs grew 5.03 mm long for 30 min with the water vapor added while CNTs were 1.73 mm long without water vapor at the same condition. As-grown CNTs were characterized by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), and Raman spectroscopy. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy showed that the as-grown CNTs were of ~3 graphitic walls and ~6.6 nm in diameter.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.1089-1094
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• 2009

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have excellent electrical, chemical stability, mechanical and thermal properties. In this paper, networks of Multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) materials were investigated as resistive gas sensors for ethanol ($C_2H_5OH$) detection. Sensor films were fabricated by air spray method for the multi-walled CNTs solution on glass substrates. Sensors were characterized by resistance measurements in the sensing system, in order to find the optimum detection properties for the ethanol gas molecular. The film that was sprayed with the MWCNT dispersion for 60 see, was 300 nm thick. And the electric resistivity is $2{\times}10^{-2}\;{\Omega\cdot}cm$. Also, the sensitivity and the linearity of MWVNT sensor for ethanol gas are 0.389 %/sec and 17.541 %/FS, respectively. The MWCNT film was excellent in the response for the ethanol gas molecules and its reaction speed was very fast, which could be using as ethanol gas sensor. The conductance of the fabricated sensors decreases when the sensors are exposed to ethanol gas.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.315-320
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• 2013

In this paper, the properties of strain sensors made of spin-capable multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were characterized and their sensing mechanisms analyzed. The key contribution of this paper is a new fabrication technique that introduces a simpler transfer method compared to spin-coating or dispersion CNT. Resistance of the MWCNT sheet strain sensor increased linearly with higher strain. To investigate the effect of CNT concentration on sensitivity, two strain sensors with different layer numbers of MWCNT sheets (one and three layers) were fabricated. According to the results, the sensor with a three-layer sheet showed higher sensitivity than that with one layer. In addition, experiments were conducted to examine the effects of environmental factors, temperature, and gas on sensor sensitivity. An increase in temperature resulted in a reduction in sensor sensitivity. It was also observed that ambient gas influenced the properties of the MWCNT sheet due to charge transfer. Experimental results showed that there was a linear change in resistance in response to strain, and the resistance of the sensor fully recovered to its unstressed state and exhibited stable electromechanical properties.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.329-337
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• 2015

In this study, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were oxidized with a mixture of nitric acid and sulfuric acid. After oxidation, oxidized MWCNTs were treated with thionyl chloride ($SOCl_2$) and 1,4-butanediol (BD) in sequence at room temperature to introduce hydroxyl groups on the surface of MWCNTs. The prepared MWCNT-OH was silanized with 3-methacryloxypropyltrimethoxylsilane (MPTMS) to make MWCNT-MPTMS. The MWCNT-MPTMS was used as fillers in emulsion polymerization to make MWCNT-MPTMS/PMMA composite particles with 3 kinds of emulsifiers, hexadecyltrimethylammoniumbromide (CTAB) as a cationic, sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate (SDBS) as an anionic and polyethylene glycol tert-octylphenyl ether (Triton X-114) as a nonionic emulsifier. Morphologies of composite emulsions were confirmed by a particle size analyzer (PSA) and a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Morphologies of emulsion polymerized MWCNT-MPTMS/PMMA with SDBS showed more uniform particle size distribution compared to those of other two emulsifiers used emulsions. MWCNT-MPTMS/PMMA showed $3.4^{\circ}C$ higher $T_g$ compared to pristine MWCNT/PMMA due to covalent bond formation at interface of MWCNT-MPTMS and PMMA.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.194-199
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• 2021

In this study, rebar corrosion detection sensor was fabricated using multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). MWCNTs were pre-treated in the acid electrolytes to attach the carboxylic acid to the surface of MWCNTs. The fabricated sensor was attached on the surface of rebar and it detected the corrosion of steel using LCR meter with variation of capacitance. The surface morphology and electrical properties were characterized using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and electrical test equipment, respectively. To verify the corrosion detection characteristics, comparison experiment using plastic bar was performed. Moreover, mechanism of corrosion detection sensor was discussed.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.62 no.3
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• pp.376-379
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• 2013

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were synthesized using catalytic chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. Oxygen plasma treatment was applied to modify surface state of the CNTs synthesized for improvement of field emission performance. Surface state of the plasma treated CNTs was studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The surface states of the CNTs were changed as a function of plasma treatment time. The oxygen related carbon shift was moved toward higher binding energy with the plasma treatment time. This result implies that the oxygen plasma treatment changes the surface state effectively. While any shift in carbon 1s peak was not detected for the as grown CNTs, oxygen related carbon shift was detected for the plasma treated CNTs. Carbon shift implies that closed CNT tips were opened by the oxygen plasma and reacted with oxygen species. Since the field emission occurs at pentagons or dangling bonds of the CNT tips, the increase of carbon-oxygen bonds plays an important role in field emission behavior by increasing the number of electron emission sites resulting in improvement of the field emission performance.

• Carbon letters
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.117-124
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• 2014

Conductive polymer composites (CPCs) consist of a polymeric matrix and a conductive filler, for example, carbon black, carbon fibers, graphite or carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The critical amount of the electrically conductive filler necessary to build up a continuous conductive network, and accordingly, to make the material conductive; is referred to as the percolation threshold. From technical and economical viewpoints, it is desirable to decrease the conductive-filler percolation-threshold as much as possible. In this study, we investigated the effect of polymer/conductive-filler interactions, as well as the processing and morphological development of low-percolation-threshold (${\Phi}c$) conductive-polymer composites. The aim of the study was to produce conductive composites containing less multi-walled CNTs (MWCNTs) than required for pure polypropylene (PP) through two approaches: one using various mixing methods and the other using immiscible polymer blends. Variants of the conductive PP composite filled with MWCNT was prepared by dry mixing, melt mixing, mechanofusion, and compression molding. The percolation threshold (${\Phi}c$) of the MWCNT-PP composites was most successfully lowered using the mechanofusion process than with any other mixing method (2-5 wt%). The mechanofusion process was found to enhance formation of a percolation network structure, and to ensure a more uniform state of dispersion in the CPCs. The immiscible-polymer blends were prepared by melt mixing (internal mixer) poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF, PP/PVDF, volume ratio 1:1) filled with MWCNT.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.35 no.10
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• pp.2974-2978
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• 2014

$Mn_3O_4$/multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) composites are prepared by chemically synthesizing $Mn_3O_4$ nanoparticles on a MWCNT film at room temperature. Structural and morphological characterization has been carried out using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning and transmission electron microscopies (SEM and TEM). These reveal that polycrystalline $Mn_3O_4$ nanoparticles, with sizes of about 10-20 nm, aggregate to form larger nanoparticles (50-200 nm), and the $Mn_3O_4$ nanoparticles are attached inhomogeneously on MWCNTs. The electrochemical behavior of the composites is analyzed by cyclic voltammetry experiment. The $Mn_3O_4$/MWCNT composite exhibits a specific capacitance of $257Fg^{-1}$ at a scan rate of $5mVs^{-1}$, which is about 3.5 times higher than that of the pure $Mn_3O_4$. Cycle-life tests show that the specific capacitance of the $Mn_3O_4$/MWCNT composite is stable up to 1000 cycles with about 85% capacitance retention, which is better than the pure $Mn_3O_4$ electrode. The improved supercapacitive performance of the $Mn_3O_4$/MWCNT composite electrode can be attributed to the synergistic effects of the $Mn_3O_4$ nanoparticles and the MWCNTs, which arises not only from the combination of pseudocapacitance from $Mn_3O_4$ nanoparticles and electric double layer capacitance from the MWCNTs but also from the increased surface area, pore volume and conducting property of the MWCNT network.