Our DMA and IR results may provide guidelines to realize the desired morphologies and to improve the properties of polymer carbon nanotube nanocomposites by optimizing intermolecular interactions between MWNTs and polymers. Additionally, the IR analysis of the nanocomposites indicates melt-mixing can result in the formation of more intermolecular hydrogen bonding between the MWNTs and PSVPh than solution casting, and thus suggests that melt-mixing leads to more reproducible mechanical properties than solution casting. Our DMA results suggest that melt-mixing leads to more stable morphologies of the final nanocomposites than solution casting does.

The mechanical properties of the nanocomposites were measured by DMA, and the extent of intermolecular hydrogen bonding between MWNTs and PSVPh was quantified by IR. The MWNTs were either oxidized to incorporate oxygenated defects or utilized as received. Polymer nanocomposites composed of poly(styrene-co-vinyl phenol) (PSVPh) copolymers and 5 wt % multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) were prepared from three different methods, including melt-mixing and solution casting. The first topic is the impact of sample preparation processes on the properties of polymer carbon nanotube nanocomposites. This thesis presents experimental studies to investigate the dispersion of nanoparticles is polymer matrices using specific intermolecular hydrogen bonding between the nanoparticles and polymer matrices under two main topics. The dispersion of nanoparticles in a polymer matrix is a critical parameter to design and realize targeted morphologies and properties of a final polymer-based nanocomposite.

Bestiary chang