In-situ growth of scaly carbon nanotube by Cu@Ni core-shell catalyst on continuous carbon fiber surface for multiply tenoned composite interphase

A core-shell catalyst Cu@Ni was designed on continuous carbon fiber (CF) surface. Cu and Ni were sequentially loaded by dual conversion method, whose contents were optimized to grow novel scaly carbon nanotubes (sCNTs). The additional scale-like graphite pieces contribute to surface area and chemically active graphene edges, endowing sCNT–CF with 125% higher IFSS than original CF (111% for ILSS). Regular CNT–CF is also significantly outperformed by sCNT–CF, both in tensile and interfacial properties . The results of atomic force microscope revealed the tightly integrated sCNT–CF/epoxy interphase based on multiply tenoned effect owing to the “scales”. This advanced multi-scale reinforcement can be produced continuously, hence possesses broad application prospects.