Patent ID: 7153903

Claim:
A method of preparing a carbon nanotube-filled composite, comprising: combining a quantity of single-walled carbon nanotubes with an aqueous surfactant to form a surfactant-nanotube mixture; sonicating the surfactant-nanotube mixture to form a surfactant-nanotube dispersion; combining a polymerization initiator with the surfactant-nanotube dispersion to form a surfactant-nanotube-initiator mixture; combining a quantity of a monomer with a quantity of a hydrophobe to form a monomer-hydrophobe mixture; combining a polymerization catalyst with the monomer-hydrophobe mixture to form a monomer-hydrophobe-polymerization catalyst mixture; combining the surfactant-nanotube-initiator mixture with the monomer-hydrophobe-polymerization catalyst mixture to form a monomer-nanotube mixture; and sonicating the monomer-nanotube mixture causing formation of a monomer-nanotube miniemulsion within which polymerization occurs thereby forming the carbon nanotube-filled composite.