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Influence of melt-mixing processing sequence on electrical conductivity of polyethylene/polypropylene blends filled with graphene

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Abstract

In this paper, we produced composites of high-density polyethylene (PE)/polypropylene (PP) filled with graphene by melt compounding. Comparing composites produced in three processing sequences, we explored whether the sequence improved the composites’ electrical conductivity. The (graphene/PE)/PP composite, prepared by simultaneous compounding, exhibited an electrical percolation threshold of 1.25 vol.%. In contrast, the (graphene/PP)/PE composite, prepared by blending the graphene with PP first and then blending the graphene/PP with PE, had a much lower electrical percolation threshold at less than 0.83 vol.%. At its percolation threshold, the (graphene/PP)/PE composite had a conductivity about two orders of magnitude higher than the (graphene/PE)/PP composite. We attribute this difference in conductivity to differences in the graphene distributions in the composites. In the (graphene/PE)/PP composite, the graphene sheets were selectively dispersed in the PE phase; in the (graphene/PP)/PE composite, some of the graphene was localized at the interface of the PE/PP blend. We also showed how the different processing sequences affected the composites’ measured rheological and mechanical properties.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51221002 and 21174014). We also thank the Instrument and Research Technology Center at Nagoya Institute of Technology for AFM, TEM, and FE-SEM analyses.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, China

    Ce Tu & Shouke Yan

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Gokiso-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya, 466-8555, Japan

    Ce Tu & Kenji Nagata

  3. Institute of Ceramics Research and Education, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Gokiso-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya, 466-8555, Japan

    Kenji Nagata

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  1. Ce Tu
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Correspondence to Kenji Nagata.

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Tu, C., Nagata, K. & Yan, S. Influence of melt-mixing processing sequence on electrical conductivity of polyethylene/polypropylene blends filled with graphene. Polym. Bull. 74, 1237–1252 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-016-1774-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-016-1774-4

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