High Performance Hybrid Fabrics Containing Carbon Nanotube

In response to the ever-growing demand within the textile market, manufacturing hybrid materials using nonwoven fabrics with nanomaterials and nanotechnology has become immensely important. Thus, these hybrid materials will increasingly be used in a diverse range of applications in the future. The use of nanotechnology for the functionalization of materials made with traditional textile techniques provides certain unique characteristics, such as sensory properties, electrical conductivity, and other features. This use of nanotechnology has been achieved through such developments as new materials, fibers, conducting polymers, and carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Owing to their small size, lightweight, and extra-ordinary mechanical, electrical and thermal properties, along with their large aspect ratio and higher specific surface area, CNTs have had significant impact on products that are manufactured in the textile industry. Utilizing CNTs with conventional micro or nano-sized fiber nonwovens is still challenging, yet highly desirable in various fields.;In current literature, there are many studies that utilize CNTs with micro or nano-sized fiber textile materials. In some of this research, CNTs were directly grown on the surface of micro-sized glass or nickel fibers. In others, CNTs were dispersed in polymer solution, which was then electrospun to produce high tensile strength and electrical conductive nonwoven fabrics. However, it is necessary to investigate alternative methods in order to advance the field of CNT-textile hybrid fabrics.;Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) processes, where catalyst nanoparticles are deposited on a substrate, are often used to produce vertically aligned CNT arrays. These one-millimeter long CNTs are highly drawable in nature. In this dissertation, CNT sheets have been incorporated with conventional micro-sized polymeric fibers to investigate aerosol filtration characteristics. Since CNT sheets have small diameters, low basis weight, low packing density and high porosity, these sheets are a great candidate for air filtration structures. The results showed that the CNT-nonwoven hybrid fabric exhibited excellent filtration properties. In addition, the fabric porosity and also the architecture of CNTs in the fabric have been found to be important and that further improvements could be made through further engineering the multi-layered fabric structure.;CNTs have been dispersed into various polymer solutions in order to improve tensile properties and increase the electrical conductivity of electrospun nanofiber nonwovens. However, several factors significantly influence the final nanofiber nonwovens properties. Stable nanoscale hybrid fabrics, containing both polymer nanofibers and separate and distinct carbon nanotubes (CNTs), are highly desirable but very challenging to produce. In this dissertation, the novel CNT-polymer hybrid nonwoven fabrics were created by simultaneously electrospinning nanofibers onto aligned CNT sheets which were drawn and collected on a grounded, rotating mandrel. The filtration characteristics and barrier properties of hybrid fabrics were evaluated.;Significant efforts have been made to explore high specific capacity lithium-ion battery electrodes. Silicon anodes have been found previously to have limited application in commercial batteries due to the significant volume change (up to 400%) of silicon during cycling, which hinder silicon's application into lithium-ion batteries. Therefore, in order to solve the problems caused by the silicon volume expansion, the hybridization method was used to prepare silicon-carbon nanotube (CNT) hybrid anode architecture. The novel freestanding, binder free CNT-Si-C sheet hybrid exhibited improved performance in terms of excellent cycling capacity, coulombic efficiency, and good capacity retention.