Title screen

Nickel-carbon nanotube (CNT-Ni) composite powders were successfully synthesized by electrical explosion of Ni wire in an ethanoic-CNT suspension as an ambient condition. The as-prepared CNT-Ni composite powders were then dried, heated at 400 °C in a H2/CO2 environment, completely sintered by using spark plasma sintering at 1100 °C (with a heating rate of 50 °C/min from room temperature) for 10 min under a pressure of 50 MPa in vacuum condition. According to Ranma spectroscopy analysis, the structure of CNTs was not changed after sintering process. A hardness of 3.0 wt.% CNT-Ni composite was improved up to 30.04% compared to pure Ni, but this enhanced hardness was not achieved when the concentrations of CNTs up to 5.0 wt.%, thus setting an empirical reinforcing limit. The main strengthening mechanism for this could be explained by the Hall-Petch effect. The vibrating sample magnetometer analysis results showed that the as-synthesized nickel-carbon nanotube composites were soft ferromagnetic materials.