Electrical,dielectric and surface wetting properties of multi-walled carbon nanotubes/nylon-6 nanocomposites

This paper reports that the multi-walled carbon nanotubes(MWCNT)/nylon-6(PA6) nanocomposites with different MWCNT loadings have been prepared by a simple melt-compounding method.The electrical,dielectric,and surface wetting properties of the CNT/PA6 composites have been studied.The temperature dependence of the con-ductivity of the CNT/PA6 composite with 10.0 wt% CNT loading(σRT-10-4 S/cm) are measured,and afterwards a charge-energy-limited tunnelling model(ln σ(T)-T-1/2) is found.With increasing CNT weight percentage from 0.0 to 10.0 wt%,the dielectric constant of the CNT/PA6 composites enhances and the dielectric loss tangent increases two orders of magnitude.In addition,water contact angles of the CNT/PA6 composites increase and the composites with CNT loading larger than 2.0 wt% even become hydrophobic.The obtained results indicate that the electrical and surface properties of the composites have been significantly enhanced by the embedded carbon nanotubes.