In environmental education, environmental knowledge is considered to be one of the most important factors affecting university students’ pro-environmental behavior. First, in this paper, the ecological civilization theory (ECT) was understood as a new kind of environmental knowledge. Based on this, a new theoretical model for analyzing the relationships among environmental knowledge, environmental attitude, and environmental behavior was designed in this paper according to ECT and the Knowledge-Attitude-Practice (KAP) theoretical model. Second, from the perspective of students, a questionnaire was designed for students according to ECT, so as to understand the level of ECT of students. On this basis, an empirical test of the relationship between the ECT level, pro-environmental attitude level, and pro-environmental behavior level was carried out. This research shows that ECT as environmental knowledge is as important as science-oriented environmental knowledge (SEK) in environmental education. As a result, the role of environmental knowledge in environmental education should not be ignored but environmental knowledge should be enriched by adding ECT to the environmental knowledge system and improving the environmental knowledge education curriculum, contributing to environmental education in China.

This paper proposes a flexible and highly sensitive carbon nanotube buckypaper as a sensing layer embedded within a composite for cure monitoring applications. The buckypaper was fabricated with mono-dispersion of multi-wall carbon nanotubes by a spray-vacuum filtration method. Six different curing conditions (with maximum heating temperatures of 120 °C, 108 °C, 95 °C, 90 °C, 85 °C and 75 °C) were designed to characterize and analyze the electromechanical response of the BP sensor to the composite structure, and the results indicated that the temperature coefficient of resistance of buckypaper is associated to the resin curing behavior. The critical value (−7.18 × 10⁻⁴ °C⁻¹) of the temperature coefficient of resistance was determined. Experimental results also show that a stable three-dimensional network of resin molecular chains is formed and that the polymer presents a glassy state when the value of the temperature coefficient of resistance is greater than the critical value. Based on this relationship, a hypothesis was raised that for the complete curing of the resin, the temperature coefficient of resistance of the buckypaper sensor should meet the critical value condition, which was also consistent with the differential scanning calorimetry testing of the curing degree. The buckypaper sensor was found to be sensitive to the curing degree of the resin, and has a promising future in applications in composite manufacturing processes. Moreover, the properties of composite components are indeed able to be improved via the monitoring and optimization of the curing parameters.

A new type of embedded composite material health monitoring nano-sensor is designed to ensure that the unique material advantages of nanofillers can be maximized. The carbon nanotubes (CNTs)/polysulfone (PSF)/polyimide (PI) thin film sensor in this paper is obtained by the self-assembly of a PSF/PI asymmetric porous membrane which is prepared by a phase inversion method through vacuum filtration of SWCNTs. It is a new structure for a practical CNT sensor that can take into account both ‘composite health monitoring and damage warning’ and ‘composite mechanical enhancement’. The new structure of the CNTs/PSF/PI film sensor is divided into two parts. The upper part consists of small-aperture finger-like holes filled with SWCNTs (the SWCNT content is 0.0127 mg cm⁻²). The lower part consists of large-aperture cavities conducive to resin infiltration, which enhance the interface bonding force between the sensor and the composite material. This unique structure allows the CNTs/PSF/PI film sensor to change the influence of the embedded sensor from ‘introducing defects’ to ‘local enhancement’, and the mechanical strength of the enhanced specimen can reach up to 1.68 times that of the original specimen, and the service interval can reach 2.01 times that of the original specimen. In addition, the CNTs/PSF/PI film sensor also has good sensitivity (GF = 2.54) and extremely high linearity (R² = 0.9995), and has excellent follow-up and interface bonding ability. It can also maintain excellent fatigue resistance and stability over 46 500 vibration cycles, which provides new research ideas and research methods for the field of composite-life monitoring sensors.

In this study, a flexible and highly sensitive carbon nanotube buckypaper(BP) sensor was fabricated and validated which can be embedded in the composite reinforcement to real-time monitor flowing and infiltration of the resin for vacuum assisted liquid composite molding(VARI). The BP sensors were prepared by the spray-vacuum filtration method with mono-dispersion of multi-wall carbon nanotubes. It turns out that the excellent properties of the BP sensors can be obviously characterized; for example, conductivity, sensitivity and permeability, which were confirmed through contrasting the penetration of acetone and resin to the BP sensor. The utility of this novel technology about BP sensor monitoring resin flow front had been demonstrated through penetration evaluation experiment. The change in resistance with time obtained by BP sensors described the advancement of resin flow front with time, and comparing with the information recorded by a camera and a stopwatch, the results were basically the same. Additionally, because the permeability is an important process parameter during infiltration, affecting manufacturing cycle and product quality, four different conditions for the number of layers about the laid glass-fiber-reinforced were investigated. The comparison results of different permeability were gained from the information collected by BP sensors in real-time monitoring and combined with Darcy's law. This paper not only reveals the ability of BP sensor as a new method in real-time monitoring, but also provides a new way to avoid defects and optimize production in VARI processes.