ABSTRACT
Carbon nanostructures, such as Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs), Nanofibers (CNFs) and graphene, have extraordinary mechanical-stiffness, strength, and physical-thermal, electrical conductivities, properties. On this account, metal-based composites reinforced with CNTs or CNFs are being projected for use in structural applications for their high specific strength as well as functional materials for their exciting thermal and electrical characteristics (Bakshi et al. 2010). An effective method for synthesizing a composite material based on copper and carbon nanostructures was proposed in (Nasibulin et al. 2013). Carbon nanostructures-tubes, fibers, and multilayer graphene, were synthesized directly on copper particles without additional catalyst by deposition from the gas phase. This method allows to exclude such complex operations, as functionalization of carbon nanostructures and their introduction into the matrix. The Cu-CNF compact composite, prepared by the proposed method, have the wear reduced by more than twice compared to that of traditional Cu-graphite samples practically retaining the copper electrical properties (Larionova et al. 2014).
