Effect of carbon nanotubes on the crystallization and properties of semi-crystalline polyarylene ether nitrile

Polyarylene ether nitrile (PEN) as a polymer material that is rapidly developing in the advanced fields, and the study of its crystalline behavior and dielectric properties has high theoretical research and practical application value. In this work, the effect of CNTs content on the crystallization behavior and dielectric properties of semi-crystalline PEN had been studied in detail. The SEM results showed that the CNTs and the semi-crystalline PEN have good compatibility. The thermodynamic properties and crystallization properties of PEN/CNTs composites were characterized by differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). What’s more, the dielectric properties and mechanical properties of composites were studied to show the impact caused by the addition of CNTs. The introduction of CNTs into semi-crystalline PEN improved the crystallization properties of PEN/CNTs composite significantly (the optimal crystallinity has been increased by 28.44%). As a result, the dielectric constant of PEN/CNTs composite increased with the CNTs addition content increasing, while the dielectric loss always keeps less than 0.02. Besides, PEN/CNTs composite also shows high heat resistance, good mechanical strength, and toughness. Therefore, this PEN/CNTs composite has potential applications in the field of electronic materials.