Studies on toughened polycarbonate/multiwalled carbon nanotubes nanocomposites

The electrically conducting nanocomposites (NCs) of toughened polycarbonate (PC) fabricated by using melt blending method with different loadings of multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNTs) ranging from 0.25 to 10 phr were studied in this paper. Thus prepared NCs were characterized for morphology (scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction), mechanical properties, thermal property, electrical conductivity (using two probe method) and electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness (using vector network analyzer). The impact strength of toughened PC prepared by blending PC with 5 wt% of ethylene methyl acrylate (EMA) copolymer having impact strength 318 J/m i.e. 381% improvement as compared to neat PC was further increased to 19% (378 J/m) after 1 phr addition of MWCNTs. Maximum tensile strength and modulus of PC/EMA-MWCNT NCs (about 39 and 60% increase respectively as compare to PC/EMA blend) was achieved at the loading of 10 phr MWCNT. An electrical percolation threshold (p(c)) occurred at 1 phr of MWCNTs and higher electrical conductivity value about 1.56 x 10(-3) S cm(-1) was attained for PC/EMA (95/5) having 10 phr of MWCNTs. Maximum EMI shielding effectiveness of toughened PC having 10 phr of MWCNTs was observed as similar to -26 dB in X-band with samples of 3 mm thickness. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.