Challenges to the industrial melt-processing of conductive plastics

Choong , Gabriel Y. H.; De Focatiis , Davide S. A.; Lidgett , Mark J.; Thornton , Matthew J.; Clifford , Mike J.

Abstract

In this work, we investigate the relationship between the timescales available for polymer mobility during processing and post-processing and the electrical resistivity of melt-processed thermoplastics filled with carbon nanoparticles. Post-process annealing below the glass transition temperature was one avenue explored to uplift electrical conductivity. Detailed analysis of available literature on thermoplastics filled with either graphite nanoplatelets or carbon nanotubes, and of relevant processing data suggests that the required timescale for shaping process or post-processing to obtain conductive material needs to be sufficiently longer than that of the base polymer characteristic relaxation time τd. Four factors have been identified that promote the formation of a conductive filler network in thermoplastics: filler loading content, polymer molar mass, processing temperature and processing timescales.

Citation

Choong, G. Y. H., De Focatiis, D. S. A., Lidgett, M. J., Thornton, M. J., & Clifford, M. J. Challenges to the industrial melt-processing of conductive plastics. Presented at Proceedings of the Europe/Africa Conference Dresden 2017 – Polymer Processing Society PPS, Dresden, Germany

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: Proceedings of the Europe/Africa Conference Dresden 2017 – Polymer Processing Society PPS
• Acceptance Date: Jan 22, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jan 22, 2019
• Publication Date: Jan 22, 2019
• Deposit Date: Sep 2, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 23, 2020
• Journal: AIP Conference Proceedings
• Print ISSN: 0094-243X
• Electronic ISSN: 1551-7616
• Publisher: American Institute of Physics
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2055
• Article Number: 090003
• Pages: 090003-1 to 090003-5
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5084881
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4327988
• Publisher URL: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.5084881
• Additional Information: This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. This article appeared in Challenges to the industrial melt-processing of conductive plastics, Y. H. Choong Gabriel, S. A. De Focatiis Davide, J. Lidgett Mark, J. Thornton Matthew, and J. Clifford Mike, AIP Conference Proceedings 2055:1 and may be found at https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.5084881.