LAUSR

Issues associated with the dry spinning process were explored and addressed in this paper. Post-treatment of dry-spun Carbon Nanotube (CNT) fibers frequently includes solvent densification. This procedure was modified in our work to enhance mechanical strength of the fiber. The effect of n–Methyl-2-Pyrrolidone (NMP) as a densifying solvent was studied at different temperatures within the range of 23 °C–153 °C. High temperature densified fibers revealed better load bearing (40% increase) and higher density compared to room temperature values, which translated to higher tensile strengths (1.2–1.3 GPa). A maximum tensile strength of 1.5 GPa was achieved with resistance assisted heating combined with NMP heating. However, all these properties, including the fiber diameter, varied depending on the position within the array from where the fibers were drawn. This was attributed to a gradation in the length of the CNT's along the location of the drawing area within the array. Improved fiber uniformity was achieved by drawing from opposite ends of CNT arrays simultaneously. This study enabled to improve the densification process and addressed a major fiber uniformity problem accompanying the dry spinning method.