Febrication of MWNTs Composites with In Situ Precipitation Method

In this article stable multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) aqueous suspension with a 1.0 wt.% concentration was obtained with a very small quantity of dispersant. Precursor of ceramics were synthesized in the suspension and densely deposited on the surface of MWNTs successfully by a simple and effective in-situ precipitation method. The most important advantage for the in-situ composite method is to make MWNTs homogeneously distributed in the matrix. The fully dense compacts were obtained by spark-plasma-sintering (SPS) the in-situ precipitated composite powders at temperature 200 oC lower than that of composite powders made from the traditional mixing method. Furthermore, the microstructure and the mechanical property of the composites are much better than that of traditional method. The in-situ precipitation could be a promising method to fabricate CNTs composites of ceramics matrix especially those hard to sinter.