Carbon Nanotube and Graphene Based Polyamide Electrospun Nanocomposites: A Review

Abstract

Electrospinning is a unique and versatile technique to produce nanofibres; the facility to incorporate fillers has expanded its range of applications. This review gives a brief description of the process and the different polymers employed for obtaining nanofibres. Owing to the ability of fibrillation of polyamides, these polymers have resulted in a wide variety of interesting results obtained when using this technique; therefore these features are summarised. Additionally, because of the feasibility of incorporating carbon nanotubes and graphene in these nanofibres and the growing interest on these nanomaterials, this review focuses in the most common methods employed for their incorporation in electrospun polyamides. Several equipment setups used for the electrospinning of the nanofibres are explained. The outstanding electrical, optical, crystallinity, and mechanical properties obtained by a number of research groups are discussed. The potential applications of the resulting nanocomposites have also been explored.