and can even provide covalent bonding between the swnts or other cnt types and the surrounding polymer matrix wherein the chemical treatments necessary for these derivatizations do not disrupt the network conformations of the nascent swnts and or significantly degrade their mechanical properties their use in conjunction with the methods of the present invention should considerably enhance the range and versatility of the resulting composites these enhancements range from the use of solvents that are incompatible with nascent swnts to the direct incorporation of prepolymer systems into clumped nanotube networks without any solvent one example is the use of u201c bucky paper u201d which has been functionalized so that it is compatible with epoxy prepolymers stacks of the functionalized bucky paper are swollen with the prepolymer and then cured in situ using conventional molding techniques the process will produce composites with very high swnt content such composites have the potential of exhibiting mechanical strength and electrical conductivity comparable to that of the pure swnts in some embodiments to increase the dispersion of swnts solutions of liquid epoxy prepolymers are prepared in organic solvents such as n n dimethylformamide with one or more amine curing agents wherein the solution comprises ca 0 1 weight of carboxylic acid group end functionalized swnts these can then be atomized and sprayed onto a stationary surface generating layered specimens of carboxylic acid functionalized swnts epoxy composites that show increased swnts dispersion in the epoxy matrix see fig1 a and 11 b compared with 0 1 weight of as received swnts epoxy composites see fig1 a and 10 b in some embodiments to increase.