Make Carbon nanotube-polymer composite thin: application to water quality
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Make Carbon nanotube-polymer composite thin: application to water quality C. Villeneuve1,2, S. Pacchini1,2, ,M. Dilhan1,2, D. Colin1,2, A. Brouzes3, P. Boulanger3, R. Plana1,2 1 CNRS ; LAAS ; 7 avenue du colonel Roche, F-31077 Toulouse, France 2 Université de Toulouse ; UPS, INSA, INP, ISAE ; LAAS ; F-31077 Toulouse, France 3 CEA-IRaMiS, Institut Rayonnement Matière de Saclay, France ABSTRACT This paper reviews our works about the development of thin composite film based on aligned carbon nanotubes (CNT) forest, embedded in epoxy or PMMA polymer matrix, in order to fabricate membranes dedicated to water purification issue. Indeed, the small internal radius of nanotubes, the smoothness of their inner core and the hydrophobic properties of its internal surface induce remarkable flowing properties for water molecules. In this article, thinning technology process is investigated to obtain composite film with opened CNT. Different etching techniques as grinding, Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) and isotropic plasma O2 are investigated in term of etching rate and membrane roughness, using AFM and SEM characterizations. Results show CMP process in lapping configuration permits to obtain agreement between high etching rate and membrane roughness. Moreover, to improve water flowing through membrane, O2 plasma treatment is used to remove polymer residue spread over CNT. Joint use of lapping and plasma treatment permits to obtain 35µm-thick nanoporous membrane with well-opened protruding nanotubes. INTRODUCTION More than 10 years after their discovery, carbon nanotubes are still attracting much interest for their potential applications, which are largely derives from their exceptional structure, stiffness [1], remarkable thermal [2] and electrical properties [3]. To capitalize on this, CNT have become a component of large-scale composite structure includes mechanical as well as multi-functional properties tailoring. More recently, few modeling works [4-6] show that nanotubes have interesting properties in terms of nanofluidics and more particularly for molecular transport in their inner core. Liquids flow through nanotubes core appears to be very high [7]. Even if transport phenomenons are not well known, nanoporous composite membrane with aligned-nanotubes appears to be promising for water filtration [8-9] or desalinization [1011]. To study experimentally this high flow transport, very thin nanoporous membrane with well aligned nanotubes carpet embedded in polymer matrix is needed. In this work, thinning process is investigated to obtain membrane thickness less than 50µm with well opened CNT which allowed molecular flow. Indeed, some predictions forecast a frictionless transport model with a slip length greater than 50 nm. First of all, membrane fabrication process is detailed. Thinning methods grinding, lapping, polishing and plasma treatment are compared then these different techniques are combined to improve nanotubes opening.
EXPERIMENT Three steps are needed to obtain thin composite film, as shown in figure 1. In fi
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