Hydrodynamics of CNT dispersion in high shear dispersion mixers

Abstract

In this work, we investigate the carbon nanotube (CNT) fragmentation mechanism and dispersion in high shear homogenizers as a plausible dispersion technique, correlating with device geometries and processing conditions, for mass production of CNT-aluminum composites for automobile industries. A CNT dispersion model has been established in a turbulent flow regime and an experimental method in characterizing the critical yield stress of CNT flocs are presented. Considering CNT dispersion in ethanol as a model system, we tested two different geometries of high shear mixers - blade-stirrer type and rotor-stator type homogenizers - and reported the particle size distributions in time and the comparison has been made with the modeling approach and partly with the computational results.