Carbon-nanofibre-reinforced poly(ether ether ketone) fibres

Nano-reinforced fibres were spun from a semicrystalline high-performance poly(ether ether ketone) containing up to 10 wt% vapour-grown carbon nanofibres using conventional polymer processing equipment. Mechanical tensile testing revealed increases in nanocomposite stiffness, yield stress, and fracture strength for both as-spun and heat-treated fibres. X-ray and differential scanning calorimetry analyses were performed in order to investigate both the orientation of nanofibres within the polymer matrix and the matrix morphology. The carbon nanofibres were found to be well aligned with the direction of flow during processing. Significantly, the degree of crystallinity of the poly(ether ether ketone) matrix was found to increase with the initial addition of nanofibres although the crystal structure was not affected. The measured increase in composite tensile modulus is compared to injection-moulded nanocomposite samples made from the same blends. The results highlight the need to characterise the matrix morphology when evaluating nanocomposite performance and hence deducing the intrinsic properties of the nanoscale reinforcement.