title: Effects of solvent immersion and evaporation on the electrical conductance of pre-stressed carbon nanotube buckypapers.
abstract: Buckypapers (BPs) are free standing thin sheets made of carbon nanotubes, such as single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) or multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) or their mixtures. In this research, through in situ electrical resistance measurements, we studied the electrical conductance changes of carbon nanotube networks (NTNs) in various BP samples from complete immersion to evaporation using different chemical solvents. BP samples demonstrated a 20-30% decrease in conductance upon the immersion and almost full recovery after the drying process. We found that by pre-stressing, BP samples demonstrated highly reproducible patterns of conductance changes corresponding to solvent quantity. This feature can be potentially used for sensor applications to simultaneously detect both the occurrence and the amount of organic solvent leakage.
authors.affiliation: High-Performance Materials Institute, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32310, USA.
authors.forename: Shu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Jin Gyu
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.forename: Chuck
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Ben
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wang