Electrical conductivity of carbon-polymer composites as a function of carbon content

Abstract

The electrical conductivity of carbon particle-filled polymers was measured as a function of carbon content to find a break point of the relationships between the carbon content and the conductivity. The conductivity jumps by as much as ten orders of magnitude at the break point. The critical carbon content corresponding to the break point varies depending on the polymer species and tends to increase with the increase in the surface tension of polymer. In order to explain the dependency of the critical carbon content on the polymer species, a simple equation was derived under some assumptions, the most important of which was that when the interfacial excess energy introduced by carbon particles into the polymer matrix reaches a “universal value”, Δg ^*, the carbon particles begin to coagulate so as to avoid any further increase of the energy and to form networks which facilitate electrical conduction. The equation well explains the dependency through surface tension, as long as the difference of the surface tensions between the carbon particles and the polymer is not very small.