Due to their astounding electrical and thermal transport properties, carbon nanotubes are often used as filler material in polymer matrixes to create polymer systems with improved conductivity. In general, carbon nanotubes can alter the composite electrical conductivity dramatically with relatively low weight percent loading whereas improvements in the thermal transport properties are much less pronounced due to phonon scattering at polymer-CNT interfaces. However, polymer fibers have recently demonstrated orders of magnitude enhancements in thermal conductivity due to confinement mediated preferential chain orientation and it is well understood that carbon nanotube alignment within a polymer matrix drastically improves transport in the direction of alignment. The focus of the present study is to fabricate nanoconfined conjugated polymer-carbon nanotube nanowire arrays to reduce the interfacial phonon scattering through polymer chain and carbon nanotube co-alignment. We incorporate two unique methods to fabricate nanoconfined poly(3-hexylthiophene)-multiwalled carbon nanotube composites using anodic alumina oxide nanoporous templates. One method involves a sonication induced solution infiltration of composite material into alumina nanopores and the other method entails carbon nanotube growth along the walls of the nanopores and sequential infiltration of polymer. For the first time the impact of nanoconfinement induced co-alignment on the thermal and electrical transport was investigated for each processing technique.

Thermal and electrical transport in nanoconfined poly(3-hexylthiophene)-multi-walled carbon nanotube composite fibers

249th National Meeting (2015)

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