Hardness and electrical conductivity of uncoated and silver coated carbon nanotubes reinforced copper nanocomposites

Abstract

In the present study, carbon nanotube reinforced copper nanocomposites were fabricated using the powder metallurgy technique which includes ball milling and hot pressing. The carbon nanotube weight percentage in the nanocomposite was varied from 0.25 to 1.50% in the steps of 0.25%. Further, to improve the interfacial bonding between the carbon nanotubes and copper matrix, the carbon nanotubes were coated with silver using the electroless deposition method. The sintered and hot pressed copper nanocomposites with uncoated and silver-coated carbon nanotubes were subjected to optical and scanning electron microscope studies to understand the dispersion of nanotubes. The density, microhardness and electrical conductivity of developed nanocomposites were studied. The dispersion of nanotubes was found to be uniform throughout the copper matrix resulting in the improvement in microhardness. Especially when compared with sintered samples, the hot-pressed nanocomposites with silver-coated carbon nanotubes showed significant improvement in microhardness however beyond 0.75% content the microhardness for samples was found to drop. The electrical conductivity of nanocomposites was found to decrease with the increase in the MWCNT content which was attributed to the clustering of MWCNTs due to strong van der Waal forces and the increase in the number of interfaces between MWCNTs and copper matrix. © 2022, Indian Academy of Sciences.