Since the discovery of carbon nanofiber and single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNT), tremendous efforts have been made to investigate their potential applications. These attempts range from Pt-Ru catalyst supports for direct methanol fuel cells, efficient hydrogen storage media, remotely-actuated shape-memory characteristics, nanocomposite reinforcements, electromagnetic shielding, and highly conductive coatings. In all cases the final properties are dictated by the inherent properties, interfacial characteristics, three dimensional orientation and morphology of the fibers.

Carbon nanofiber phenolic resin nanocomposites are of particular interest for high temperature applications such as rocket nozzles and precursor for carbon carbon composites. Incorporation of carbon nanofibers (CNF) into resole phenolic resin (Hitco 134A) resulted in improved thermal and dynamic mechanical properties of the nanocomposites. The extent of CNF dispersion and the morphological parameters of in-situ CNF within the nanocomposites and in D₂O were obtained using small angle neutron scattering (SANS) and transmission electron microscopy. The scattering from dilute surface-oxidized CNF in D₂O exhibits a Guinier plateau in the q range examined, indicating that isolated scatterers exist. A simplified polydisperse hollow cylinder form factor was used to interpret the geometrical parameters of dilute dispersions of these oxidized carbon nanofibers in D₂O and carbon nanofibers within cured phenolic resin. The scattering from CNF/phenolic resin nanocomposites exhibited a q^-4 power law behavior, indicating the presence of sharp interfaces between fiber and phenolic resin from which the interfaces were quantified.

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