Hybrid carbon nanomaterials, such as those that incorporate carbon nanotubes into graphene sheets, have been found to display interesting mechanical and electrical properties because of their covalent bonding and π-π stacking domains. However, synthesis of these hybrid materials is limited by the high energetic cost of techniques like chemical vapor deposition. Here, we demonstrate the solvent- and gas-free synthesis of a 2D carbon nanotube/graphene network through flash Joule heating of pristine carbon nanotubes. The relative proportion of each morphology in the hybrid material can be tuned by varying the pulse time, as confirmed by Raman spectroscopy and microscopy. Triboindentation of epoxy composites made with the hybrid material shows increases of 162% and 64% to the hardness and Young's modulus, respectively, compared with the neat epoxy. These results demonstrate that flash Joule heating can be used to inexpensively convert carbon nanotubes into a hybrid network of nanotubes and graphene for use as an effective reinforcing additive in epoxy composites.
Keywords: carbon nanotubes; composites; cross-linking; flash Joule heating; flash graphene; hybrid morphologies; unzipping.