It is difficult to increase the content of carbon nanotubes in carbon nanotubes/polyether ether ketone (CNTs/PEEK) thermoplastic composites prepared by doping carbon nanotubes into highly viscous PEEK resin using conventional methods. In this paper, a multi-walled carbon nanotubes/PEEK (MWCNT/PEEK) thermoplastic composite film with high MWCNTs content is prepared by vacuum suction filtered and hot-pressing methods. The microstructure and interfacial bonding performance of chemically modified and unmodified composites in the form of films are analyzed by molecular dynamics simulation and experiment. The results show that MWCNT can significantly improve the crystallinity of PEEK resin. Compared with the MWCNT/PEEK composites without chemical modification, the MWCNT-COOH/PEEK-OH composite film has a denser structure, and the tensile strength and elastic modulus are increased by 94.5% and 15%, respectively. The MWCNT-COOH/PEEK-OH composite films are expected to be used for interlaminar mechanical performance enhancement of CF/PEEK high-performance thermoplastic composites, which are widely used in aerospace.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.