(336a) Award Submission: Characterization of Viscoelastic and Cured Composite Properties of Styrene Functionalized Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes in Unsaturated Polyester Resin

Single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) functionalization has been predominantly used to improve dispersion state in polymer composites. Unsaturated polyester resin (UPR)-SWNT composites have huge potential to improve UPR properties.  This could enable UPR, which already has the largest market share of any thermoset resin, to be used in higher performance applications.  Previously, we have investigated the dispersion state of different commercial SWNT products in UPR. However, within the range SWNT concentrations tested, cured composites have not shown significant mechanical property improvements. Urena-Benavides et al showed styrene functionalized MWNT in UPR had less aggregation and significantly different viscoelastic properties than pristine MWNT dispersions. However, they did not investigate curing kinetics or the final mechanical properties. We have hypothesized that styrene functionalized SWNT in UPR will show better cured composite properties due to the potential for intra-SWNT and SWNT- polyester resin network crosslinking. This talk will show the differences between SWNT and styrene functionalized SWNT in terms of their 1) dispersion state and viscoelastic properties of in UPR, 2) curing kinetics, and 3) final cured composite mechanical and thermal properties.