CARBON NANOTUBE DECORATION OF MACROPOROUS PDMS SPONGES FOR CONDUCTOMETRIC SENSING OF PRESSURE AND STRAIN

In this work a novel top-down approach for the synthesis of macroporous PDMS (mpPDMS) sponges decorated with pristine multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is presented. Recently, PDMS sponges synthetized by template-assisted techniques have been reported for the prepara-tion of semiconduting PDMS/carbon-based nanomaterial composites. Two main approaches have been used for their synthesis, but in both cases carbon-based nanomaterials are fully embedded into PDMS [1]. This work sets up a novel synthesis approach in which CNTs are anchored to the mpPDMS surface (and not embedded into the PDMS), thus significantly increasing the mpPDMS/CNT composite material effective surface and, in turn, considerably improving sensing performance when used for strain/stress applications.