Studies of electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties of single-walled carbon nanotube and polyaniline of nanoporous nanocomposites

Hydrogel of single-walled carbon nanotubes and polyaniline has been used for thermopower engineering applications due to desirable thermal, electrical, and mechanical properties as well as tunable degradability. In this article, we fabricated nanoporous composite scaffolds from hydrogel of single-walled carbon nanotubes and polyaniline polymer using a standard in situ polymerization process. Our solution-based fabrication method prevented single-walled carbon nanotube aggregation which resulted in enhancing thermal, electrical, and mechanical properties with keeping optimum flexibility in the porous composite scaffold. We compared the mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties of nanoporous composites with different single-walled carbon nanotube loadings. The porous composite scaffold with a 25 wt% showed higher electrical conductivity, ultimate tensile strength, and tensile modulus. Lastly, our solution fabrication method prevents aggregation single-walled carbon nanotube and could help to build the thermoelectrical materials for flexible electronic applications.