탄소나노튜브/금속 나노복합재료의 현황과 전망

Abstract

Carbon nanotube(CNT) nanocomposites have been widely studied owing to their excellent mechanical, thermal, electrical and chemical properties. Regarding their synthesis process, a homogeneous dispersion of CNTs is the most critical issue to obtain good performance of CNT nanocomposites. The homogeneous dispersion can be achieved by a novel process, i.e. molecular level mixing process. The molecular level mixing process provides a homogeneous dispersion of CNTs in metal matrices by inducing ionic bonding between functionalized CNTs and metal ions. The microstructures and properties of CNT/Metal nanocomposites, fabricated by the molecular level mixing process, have been investigated for multi-functional applications as structural and functional materials. For the structural applications, CNT/Cu nanocomposites showed an outstanding enhancement of mechanical properties such as strength, modulus and wear resistance. For the functional applications, CNT/Co nanocomposites showed an excellent field emission behaviour for possible applications on next generation field emission display and backlight units. It is expected that the multi-fuctional CNT nanocomposites can grow as emerging new materials, which can overcome the performance limit of existing engineering materials.