Electrical and mechanical characterisation of single wall carbon nanotubes based composites for tissue engineering applications

Yudan Whulanza, Elena Battini, Lorenzo Vannozzi, Maria Vomero, Arti Ahluwalia, Giovanni Vozzi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

26 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper presents the realisation of conductive matrices for application to tissue engineering research. We used poly(L-lactide (PLLA)), poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL), and poly(lactide-coglycolide) (PLGA) as polymer matrix, because they are biocompatible and biodegradable. The conductive property was integrated to them by adding single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) into the polymer matrix. Several SWNTs concentrations were introduced aiming to understand how they influence and modulate mechanical properties, impedance features and electric percolation threshold of polymer matrix. It was observed that a concentration of 0.3% was able to transform insulating matrix into conductive one. Furthermore, a conductive model of the SWNT/polymer was developed by applying power law of percolation threshold.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)188-197
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
Volume13
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2013

Keywords

  • Composite materials
  • Electrical characterisation
  • Mechanical characterisation
  • Percolation threshold
  • Single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs)

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