Interfacial and mechanical performance of chemically modified high content MWCNT/PEEK thermoplastic composites

It is difficult to increase the content of carbon nanotubes in carbon nanotubes/polyether ether ketone (CNTs/PEEK) thermoplastic composites prepared by doping carbon nanotubes into highly viscous PEEK resin using conventional methods. In this paper, a multi-walled carbon nanotubes/PEEK (MWCNT/PEEK) thermoplastic composite film with high MWCNTs content is prepared by vacuum suction filtered and hot-pressing methods. The microstructure and interfacial bonding performance of chemically modified and unmodified composites in the form of films are analyzed by molecular dynamics simulation and experiment. The results show that MWCNT can significantly improve the crystallinity of PEEK resin. Compared with the MWCNT/PEEK composites without chemical modification, the MWCNT-COOH/PEEK-OH composite film has a denser structure, and the tensile strength and elastic modulus are increased by 94.5% and 15%, respectively. The MWCNT-COOH/PEEK-OH composite films are expected to be used for interlaminar mechanical performance enhancement of CF/PEEK high-performance thermoplastic composites, which are widely used in aerospace.