Investigation into shear-thinning behavior in wet spinning of carbon nanotube fibers modeled by power law viscosity model

Abstract

The wet spinning of carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers, a representative solution processing of CNTs, has been advanced through the integration of well-established polymer sciences into their field. However, the flow behavior of CNT dispersions in the narrow spinning line, where its characteristics undergo changes due to the high-shear rate regime, has not been utilized to determine their spinnability, despite being a commonly employed method in the wet spinning of polymer fibers. Herein, we employed the power law viscosity model to investigate the correlation between flow behavior and the spinnability of CNT dispersion through the power law index which approaches to 0 as the shear-thinning behavior strengthens. We suggest that the spinnability of CNT dispersion is proportional to the degree of shear-thinning behavior of the dispersion. We ascribe this correlation to the integrity of CNT fibers which predominantly rely on the strong van der Waals forces between CNTs. These findings offer new insights into the role of fiber integrity in spinnability and provide a framework for optimizing the wet spinning process of CNT fibers through detailed analysis of dispersion flow behavior.