Journal
CARBON LETTERS
Volume 15, Issue 2, Pages 117-124Publisher
SPRINGER JAPAN KK
DOI: 10.5714/CL.2014.15.2.117
Keywords
conductive polymer composite; multi-walled carbon nanotube; polypropylene
Funding
- Soft Innovative Materials Research Center of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST)
- Fundamental RAMP
- D Program for Technology of World Premier Materials - Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Republic of Korea
- Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT) [10037878] Funding Source: Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KISTI), National Science & Technology Information Service (NTIS)
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Conductive polymer composites (CPCs) consist of a polymeric matrix and a conductive filler, for example, carbon black, carbon fibers, graphite or carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The critical amount of the electrically conductive filler necessary to build up a continuous conductive network, and accordingly, to make the material conductive; is referred to as the percolation threshold. From technical and economical viewpoints, it is desirable to decrease the conductive-filler percolation-threshold as much as possible. In this study, we investigated the effect of polymer/conductive-filler interactions, as well as the processing and morphological development of low-percolation-threshold (Phi c) conductive-polymer composites. The aim of the study was to produce conductive composites containing less multi-walled CNTs (MWCNTs) than required for pure polypropylene (PP) through two approaches: one using various mixing methods and the other using immiscible polymer blends. Variants of the conductive PP composite filled with MWCNT was prepared by dry mixing, melt mixing, mechanofusion, and compression molding. The percolation threshold (Phi c) of the MWCNT-PP composites was most successfully lowered using the mechanofusion process than with any other mixing method (2-5 wt%). The mechanofusion process was found to enhance formation of a percolation network structure, and to ensure a more uniform state of dispersion in the CPCs. The immiscible-polymer blends were prepared by melt mixing (internal mixer) poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF, PP/PVDF, volume ratio 1:1) filled with MWCNT.
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