Development of Polymeric Materials Reinforced by Nano Carbon Tubes

The present work aims to develop epoxy composites to be used as fast and cheap dies. The influence of reinforcing epoxy by carbon nanotubes and filling by different types of vegetables oils (olive, corn, sunflower, sesame, almond and paraffin oil) on the friction coefficient, wear resistance and the mechanical properties is investigated. Carbon nanotubes of 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1.0 wt. % content are added to epoxy matrix mixed by 10 wt. % of vegetable oils. Based on the experimental results, it was found that a significant decrease in friction coefficient was observed with increasing CNTs content. Oils can be ranked due to their effect in decreasing friction coefficient at 0.75 wt.% CNTs content as follows corn , almond , paraffin, sesame , sunflower , and olive oil. On the other hand, it was noticed that there is significant decrease in wear loss values. Oils can be ranked due to their effect in decreasing wear at 0.75 wt. % CNTs content as follows sesame, corn, paraffin, sunflower, almond and olive. This indicates that sesame oil gives the best wear resistance among the tested vegetable oils.