There is increasing demand for the development of a new material with high strength, high stiffness, and good electrical conductivity that can be used for high-voltage direct current cables. In this study, we develop aluminumbased composites containing C₆₀ fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, or graphene using a powder metallurgical route and evaluate their strength, stiffness, coefficient of thermal expansion, and electrical conductivity. By optimizing the process conditions, a material with a tensile strength of 800 MPa, an elastic modulus of 90 GPa, and an electrical conductivity of 40% IACS is obtained, which may replace iron-core cables. Furthermore, by designing the type and volume fraction of the reinforcement, a material with a tensile strength of 380 MPa, elastic modulus of 80 GPa, and electrical conductivity of 54% IACS is obtained, which may compete with AA 6201 aluminum alloys for use in all-aluminum conductor cables.

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• Synergistic strengthening of aluminum with SiC by grain refinement and dispersion hardening
  Kanhu C. Nayak, Juyeon Han, Suwon Park, Miran Joo, Kon‐Bae Lee, Donghyun Bae, Hyunjoo Choi
  Journal of the American Ceramic Society.2023; 106(12): 7340.     CrossRef
• Synergetic effect of milling speed and duration on particle morphology and mechanical properties of nanocrystalline Al matrix containing SiC
  K.C. Nayak, J.Y. Han, C.H. Jung, M.R. Joo, K.B. Lee, D.H. Bae, H.J. Choi
  Powder Metallurgy.2023; 66(5): 519.     CrossRef

In the present study, we develop a conductive copper/carbon nanomaterial additive and investigate the effects of the morphologies of the carbon nanomaterials on the conductivities of composites containing the additive. The conductive additive is prepared by mechanically milling copper powder with carbon nanomaterials, namely, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and/or few-layer graphene (FLG). During the milling process, the carbon nanomaterials are partially embedded in the surfaces of the copper powder, such that electrically conductive pathways are formed when the powder is used in an epoxy-based composite. The conductivities of the composites increase with the volume of the carbon nanomaterial. For a constant volume of carbon nanomaterial, the FLG is observed to provide more conducting pathways than the MWCNTs, although the optimum conductivity is obtained when a mixture of FLG and MWCNTs is used.

A conductive additive is prepared by dispersing multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) on Cu powder by mechanical milling and is distributed in epoxy to enhance its electrical conductivity. During milling, the MWCNTs are dispersed and partially embedded on the surface of the Cu powder to provide electrically conductive pathways within the epoxy-based composite. The degree of dispersion of the MWCNTs is controlled by varying the milling medium and the milling time. The MWCNTs are found to be more homogeneously dispersed when solvents (particularly, non-polar solvent, i.e., NMP) are used. MWCNTs gradually disperse on the surface of Cu powder because of the plastic deformation of the ductile Cu powder. However, long-time milling is found to destroy the molecular structure of MWCNTs, instead of effectively dispersing the MWCNTs more uniformly. Thus, the epoxy composite film fabricated in this study exhibits a higher electrical conductivity than 1.1 S/cm.

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• Effects of Morphologies of Carbon Nanomaterials on Conductivity of Composites Containing Copper/Carbon Nanomaterial Hybrid Fillers
  Yeonjoo Lee, Sung-uk Hong, Hyunjoo Choi
  Journal of Korean Powder Metallurgy Institute.2018; 25(5): 435.     CrossRef

Multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT)–copper (Cu) composites are successfully fabricated by a combination of a binder-free wet mixing and spark plasma sintering (SPS) process. The SPS is performed under various conditions to investigate optimized processing conditions for minimizing the structural defects of CNTs and densifying the MWCNT–Cu composites. The electrical conductivities of MWCNT–Cu composites are slightly increased for compositions containing up to 1 vol.% CNT and remain above the value for sintered Cu up to 2 vol.% CNT. Uniformly dispersed CNTs in the Cu matrix with clean interfaces between the treated MWCNT and Cu leading to effective electrical transfer from the treated MWCNT to the Cu is believed to be the origin of the improved electrical conductivity of the treated MWCNT–Cu composites. The results indicate the possibility of exploiting CNTs as a contributing reinforcement phase for improving the electrical conductivity and mechanical properties in the Cu matrix composites.

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• Proposing Machine Learning Models Suitable for Predicting Open Data Utilization
  Junyoung Jeong, Keuntae Cho
  Sustainability.2024; 16(14): 5880.     CrossRef

Pt nanopowder-dispersed SiO₂ (SOP) films were prepared by RF co-sputtering method using Pt and SiO₂ targets in Ar atmosphere. The growth rate and Pt content in the film were controlled by means of manipulating the RF power of Pt target while that of SiO₂ was fixed. The roughness of the film was increased with increasing the power of Pt target, which was mainly due to the increment of the size and planar density of Pt nanopowder. It was revealed that SOP film formed at 10, 15, 20 W of Pt power contained 2.3, 2.7, and 3.0 nm of spherical Pt nanopowder, respectively. Electrical conductivity of SOP films was exponentially increased with increasing Pt power as one can expect. Interestingly, conductivity of SOP films from Hall effect measurement was greater than that from DC I-V measurement, which was explained by the significant increase of electron density.