Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Engineering Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Carbon nanotubes

Theses and Dissertations

Materials Science and Engineering

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Functional Porous Polydimethlysiloxane As Piezoresistive And Piezoelectric Materials, Taissa Rose Michel Jul 2019

Functional Porous Polydimethlysiloxane As Piezoresistive And Piezoelectric Materials, Taissa Rose Michel

Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and zinc oxide (ZnO) were combined to create functionalized piezoresistive and piezoelectric sensors for pressure sensing and energy harvesting. Samples were foamed to show that the increased deformability of the foam sensors makes them suitable for a range of applications including dexterous robotics, tactile sensing, energy harvesting, and biosensing. Uniform dispersion of CNTs was achieved with chloroform as the solvent. Samples were foamed using chemical blowing and scaffolding but granulated sugar at 70% porosity resulted in foamed samples with the most consistent mechanical properties. Samples underwent tensile and compressive testing for their …


Carbon Allotrope Dependence On Temperature And Pressure During Thermal Decomposition Of Silicon Carbide, Munson J. Anderson Mar 2014

Carbon Allotrope Dependence On Temperature And Pressure During Thermal Decomposition Of Silicon Carbide, Munson J. Anderson

Theses and Dissertations

Bulk CNT and graphene films form on SiC using a metal-catalyst-free thermal decomposition approach. In this work, the background vacuum pressure and temperature used in the decomposition process are varied to investigate their impact on the type and quality of carbon allotrope formed on the SiC substrate. The carbon nanostructure growth is performed using two approaches, both of which involve intense heating (1400-1700°C) of SiC under moderate vacuum conditions (0.01 - 0.00001 Torr). The first growth method uses a conventional graphite resistance furnace capable of annealing waferscale samples over 1700°C under vacuum. Using this approach, post-growth characterization is performed using …