Gel-carbon nanotube materials: the relationship between nanotube network connectivity and conductivity

The electrical resistance of carbon nanotube networks (NNs) prepared from combinations of gellan

gum, xanthan gum, Triton X-100, SWNT and MWNT is reported. It is demonstrated that the NN

conductivity can be obtained by analysing the resistance of two overlapping NN as a function of their

overlap distance. Unexpectedly, the connectivity between two overlapping NN was found to scale with

the electrical conductivity over 4 orders of magnitude. Insights into the dependence of inter-NN contact

on applied pressure were obtained.