Nanocomposites and nanomaterials

Preparation, atomic structure and structure sensitive properties of AlCuZnSn medium entropy alloys reinforced with multi-walled carbon nanotubes.
I.Shtablavyi1, Yu. Kulyk1, B. Sokoliuk1, V. Sklyarchuk1, V. Plechystyy1,4, B. Tsizh 2,3 S. Mudry1.

1Physics of Metals Department, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Kyrylo i Mephodiy 8, 79005 L’viv, Ukraine
E-mail: ihor.shtablavyi@lnu.edu.ua
2Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, 30 Chodkiewicza, Bydgoszcz, 85-064, Poland
3Stepan Gzhytskyi National University of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnologies, Lviv, 50 Pekarska, Lviv, 79010, Ukraine
4Faculty of Applied Physics and Mathematics, Gdansk University of Technology, Narutowicza 11/12, 80-233 Gdansk, Poland.

It is known that carbon nanotubes (CNT) are the strongest materials known to humankind update. Because of this reason, as well as their superior thermal and electrical properties, a lot of attention has been paid to using carbon nanotubes as reinforcements for composite materials. The major challenge in production of CNT-metal matrix (CNT-MM) composites is to disperse CNTs uniformly in the metal and alloy matrix. It was found recently that traditional techniques such as only powder metallurgy process one cannot use to prepare high quality metal matrix-CNT composites. Therefore other methods for obtaining of composites have been developed. Electroplating (EP) of CNT-MM composites is one of the most important techniques for preparing CNT composite, because no melting and solidification of metal matrix are induced.
This work describes a technique for obtaining nanocomposites based on AlCuZnSn light-weight high-entropy alloys with carbon nanotubes by the combined methods of powder metallurgy and electroplating.
Morphology and structure of such composites have been studied by scanning electron microscopy and XRD methods. The electrical conductivity and microhardness of the obtained composites were studied.
It was shown that by means of powder metallurgy and electroplating method we can obtain uniformly dispersed CNT in light-weight high-entropy alloys matrix.