Ferreira Santos Joao Paulo (1)*, França Melo Guilherme Henrique (1), Arjmand Mohammad (2), Sundararaj Uttandaraman (2), Suman Bretas Rosario Elida (1)
(1) Department of Materials Engineering, Universidade Federal de São Carlos - Sao Carlos - Brazil, (2) Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary - Alberta - Canada
A wide variety of nanomaterials can be deposited on electrospun nanofibers mats; one of the most promising is nitrogen doped carbon nanotubes (NTCs). One of the most efficient ways to change the properties of carbon nanotubes is through doping. These nanotubes combine unique electrical and chemical properties with a huge surface area. The surface of these NTCs can also be chemically modified to have specific targets and functionalities. After functionalization, however, it is recommendable that the interaction area between the NTCs and the environment be maximized; therefore, the adsorption of NTCs on electrospun mats with huge surface area seems a simpler solution. In this work the adsorption of NTCs to the electrospun nanofibers was accomplished in two steps: 1) Electrospinning of PA6/PAni (88/12) to produce nanofiber mats 2) Immersion of the nanofiber mats in a solution containing a non-ionic surfactant (Triton X-100) and NTCs. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) micrographs showed the formation of a stable and percolated NTC network on the nanofibers. The treated nanofiber mats had higher electrical conductivity than the non-treated ones, an increase of 1010 times, showing the efficiency of this simple procedure. The results showed that when both materials, PAni and NCT are mixed, they showed a strong coupling, probably due pi-pi interaction as showed by ultraviolet spectroscopy.