[11a-W621-1~8] 17.1 Carbon nanotubes & other nanocarbon materials

△ [11a-W621-7] Development of Novel Electrically Conductive and Wear-Resistant Coatings using Aligned Carbon Nanotubes

〇Yoshito Ikeda¹, Masanori Hara¹, Masamichi Yoshimura¹ (1.Toyota Tech Inst.)

Keywords:carbon nanotube, wear resistance, peening proces

Recently, electric and hybrid vehicles are becoming popular as a solution for the CO₂ emission problems. High current flows in these electric vehicles during charging / discharging. Therefore, reliability of connectors becomes extremely important.In general, Ag plating is well known to use for surface coatings of these connectors because Ag has the highest electrical conductivity. However, Ag is easy to be worn during insertion and removal of connectors due to its low mechanical properties. To improve reliability, a new surface coating which has high electrical conductivity and high mechanical properties are required for automotive field. In the present work, we focused on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as a conducting and wear resistant coating of electric vehicles because CNTs have unique mechanical and electrical properties. Therefore, the purpose of our research is to fabricate a new surface coating on Cu by CNTs. Thus, we grew CNTs on Cu substrate and studied wear resistance and electrical contact resistance of CNT layer.