Quantitative study of the dispersion degree in carbon nanofiber/polymer and carbon nanotube/polymer nanocomposites

Quantitative measurements of the filler dispersion degree of carbon nanofiber (CNF) and nanotube (CNT) reinforced polymer nanocomposites have been made by transmission electron microscopy. Samples were prepared by either high-shear mixing or twin-screw extrusion processing. It was found that the filler dispersion degree was largely influenced by the filler size. As the filler dimension became smaller, the dispersion parameter D0.1 largely decreased as quantified, which demonstrated the challenges associated with improving the dispersion of smaller fillers. This work provided a method to quantitatively compare the dispersion degrees of CNF/CNT polymer nanocomposites.