Enhancing the strength, toughness, and electrical conductivity of twist-spun carbon nanotube yarns by π bridging

The weak interfacial interactions between carbon nanotube (CNT) always results in low stress load transfer efficiency in CNT yarns, herein we fabricated strong, highly conducting CNT yarns at room temperature using molecules having aromatic end groups, pi bridging neighboring CNTs. The resulting CNT yarns have high tensile strength with 1697 +/- 24 MPa, toughness with 18.6 +/- 1.6 MJ/m(3), and electrical conductivity with 656.2 S/cm, which are 3.9, 2.5, and 3.5 times, respectively, as high as that of the neat CNT yarn. The specific tensile strength of the resulting CNT yarn is higher than that for previously reported CNT yarns fabricated at room temperature, even that for some CNT yarns fabricated using corossive environments or extreme temperature. This pi bridging strategy provides a promising avenue for fabricating high performance CNT yarns under ambient conditions. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.