Enhanced carbon nanotube dispersion in 3YTZP/SWNTs composites and its effect on room temperature mechanical and electrical properties

In this work, several modifications of the colloidal processing technique and spark plasma sintering (SPS) to prepare yttria tetragonal zirconia composites (YTZP) with single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) have been tested with the aim of eliminating SWNT agglomerates. These modifications include high versus low energy ultrasonic agitation during colloidal processing, lyophilization of the 3YTZP/SWNT slurry and electrical insulation during sintering of the composites. Semi-quantitative microstructural characterization of the carbon nanotube distribution in the sintered composites showed that high energy ultrasonic agitation reduces drastically agglomerate size. Lyophilization of the mixed suspensions avoids SWNT bundle size growth. Combination of both produces an enhanced carbon nanotube network distribution along the grain boundaries (GB) due to the absence of carbon nanotube agglomerates and to a limited SWNT bundle size. This results in an increase of the real SWNT content in the GBs up to nominal SWNT content and therefore an enhanced SWNT efficiency in the composites. The agglomerate-free highly-dispersed composites exhibit a decrease in density together with grain size refinement, a decrease in room temperature hardness, an increase in flexural strength and a most significant increase in room temperature electrical conductivity. Improved SWNT distribution also lowers electrical percolation threshold to a very low level in SWNT ceramic composites, <1 vol% SWNT.