Electrical Dispersion of CNTs in Organic Solvent: Combination Effect of Barrier Discharge and Electric Field

In this paper, the combination of the discharge dispersion method (DDM) and field dispersion method (FDM) has been proposed to improve the degree and stability of the CNT dispersion in an organic solvent. It is shown that the electric field more than ~ 1 MV/m can contribute to the dispersion of CNTs as well as the barrier discharges. The DDM fulfils the function for the dispersion stability of CNTs due to the adsorption of charged particles occurring by the discharge, which prevents the re-aggregation of CNTs. The FDM is useful to obtain a fine dispersion. The degree of dispersion is evaluated from the Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of CNTs and laser light transmission ratio of the suspension. The CNT sample used in the experiments is multi-walled CNTs (MWCNTs), and it is…