Researchers found that a high-shear kitchen blender disperses multi-walled carbon nanotubes in polycarbonate more cleanly than ball milling, according to a study in Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials. The blender ran in deionised water, so the process avoids chemical reagents and solvent waste. Nanotubes coated polymer particles and stayed dispersed through drying and melt compounding, which means it could work on existing production lines. The composites gained 35 percent tensile strength, 77 percent thermal conductivity, and electrical resistivity dropped by over ten orders of magnitude. At 20 percent nanotube loading, the material blocked up to 24.2 dB of electromagnetic interference, making it a candidate for molded enclosures in electronics and other lightweight shielding uses. The tradeoff is that high nanotube loading remains expensive, and the study does not compare energy use against ball milling.
