Formation of stainless steel–carbon nanotube composites using a scalable chemical vapor infiltration process

• Published in: Journal of materials science Vol. 48; no. 3; pp. 1387 - 1395
• Main Authors: Patel, Rajen B., Liu, Jinwen, Scicolone, James V., Roy, Sagar, Mitra, Somenath, Dave, Rajesh N., Iqbal, Zafar
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston Springer US 01.02.2013; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Carbon; Carbon-epoxy composites; Catalysis; Catalytic activity; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemical vapor deposition; Chemical vapor infiltration; Chemistry and Materials Science; Classical Mechanics; Coated particles; Corrosion and anti-corrosives; Corrosion rate; Crystallography and Scattering Methods; Epoxy resins; Ferric oxide; Hardness; Iron compounds; Iron oxides; Materials Science; Mechanical properties; Modulus of elasticity; Multi wall carbon nanotubes; Nanotubes; Organic chemistry; Particulate composites; Pellets; Polymer Sciences; Powders; Solid Mechanics; Stainless steel; Stainless steels; Steel, Stainless; Mixed Powder; Iron Particle; Iron Carbide; Iron Powder; Composite Pellet
• ISSN: 0022-2461; 1573-4803
• DOI: 10.1007/s10853-012-6885-1

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are among the strongest materials known, making their use in composites, a field with very high commercial potential for structural applications. Many of the methods reported to date to form metal composites have an excessive number of steps. Here, a facile chemical vapor deposition method to infiltrate multiwalled carbon nanotubes directly into pure stainless steel pellets and pellets from stainless steel mixed with iron particles is reported. The iron powder was dry-coated before vapor filtration with nanosized iron oxide catalyst precursor, a critical step to increase catalytic activity. This CVD method results in a substantial increase in the elastic modulus, yield strength, and hardness by 47, 104, and over 93 %, respectively, for composites made from mixed, dry-coated particles compared with corresponding control samples without nanotubes. This is the highest enhancement reported, to the best of our knowledge, of the mechanical properties for a metal–nanotube composite prepared using a metal other than copper. The addition of CNTs results in a relatively small increase in corrosion rate which can be mitigated to negligible levels by coating with a thin epoxy–carbon nanotube composite.