Super-strong and highly conductive carbon nanotube ribbons from post-treatment methods

In this study, we present a simple and effective mechanical densification method that uses carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers synthesized via a floating-catalyst technique to produce highly dense CNT ribbons. After being infiltrated with epoxy, the resulting cross-linked CNT ribbons exhibited impressive improvements of an increase in strength by 13.5 times and an increase in stiffness by more than 63 times, the best improvement factors reported in the literature. The strength and stiffness of the post-treated fibers reached as high as 5.2 GPa and 444 GPa respectively, while their electrical conductivity reached up to 12,000 S/cm. The knot-strength efficiency of the cross-linked CNT ribbons approached 78%, which is much higher than that of many commercial high-strength fibers. The performance of the post-treated ribbons was comparable to that of commercial PAN carbon fibers, suggesting that our combined post-treatment of CNT fibers is a promising method for achieving cost-effective mass production of high-performance CNT fibers.