Work presented at the 25th International Conference on Diamond and Carbon Materials, 7th-11th september 2014, Madrid (Spain)Remarkable progress in the fabrication of carbon nanotube composite fibers has resulted
through the development of the wet-spinning technique pioneered by Vigolo et al. [1] This
process implies the fabrication of gel fibers as a result of the collapse of surfactant-stabilized
carbon nanotube dispersions when injected into a coagulation bath. When dried, those gel
fibers become solid fibers with high carbon nanotube contents (³ 50 wt.%), significantly higher
than those achieved by other fiber spinning technologies, such as melt-spinning or
electrospinning.
We here report how this wet-spinning method provides carbon nanotube composite fibers with
tunable properties, which mainly depend on the composition of the coagulation bath used.
Polymers including polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) [2-5] and polyethylenimine (PEI) [6] have been here
investigated as coagulants.[7] Remarkable transport-, supercapacitor- and electrochemical
actuation properties are demonstrated for these coagulation wet-spun fibers, that can be woven
into fabrics and therefore offer promise for a variety of electronic textile applications [2-4].This work has been funded by the Fundación Domingo Martínez (Ayuda a la Investigación 2013)
