Fabricating strong and tough aramid fibers by small addition of carbon nanotubes.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37230970.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-38701-4 and PMC identifier 10212957.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Synthetic high-performance fibers present excellent mechanical properties and promising applications in the impact protection field. However, fabricating fibers with high strength and high toughness is challenging due to their intrinsic conflicts. Herein, we report a simultaneous improvement in strength, toughness, and modulus of heterocyclic aramid fibers by 26%, 66%, and 13%, respectively, via polymerizing a small amount (0.05 wt%) of short aminated single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), achieving a tensile strength of 6.44 ± 0.11 GPa, a toughness of 184.0 ± 11.4 MJ m<sup>-3</sup>, and a Young's modulus of 141.7 ± 4.0 GPa. Mechanism analyses reveal that short aminated SWNTs improve the crystallinity and orientation degree by affecting the structures of heterocyclic aramid chains around SWNTs, and in situ polymerization increases the interfacial interaction therein to promote stress transfer and suppress strain localization. These two effects account for the simultaneous improvement in strength and toughness.