Abstract

Creating an electrically conductive composite that can be used in a wide variety of circumstances is getting much attention. Making a flexible, easy to manufacture, and cost-effective electrical route is the challenge the research. Electrically conductive polymer composites have a wide range of applications in electronics and nanotechnology industries. They have unique features that allow them to be employed as smart materials in applications such as sensors, wearable devices, optoelectronics, and printed electronics. Thermal and electrical characterization was performed for two polymer nanocomposites to investigate their properties. Several fillers can be added to the host polymer to make a conductive nanocomposite. The filler used in this study is multi-wall carbon nanotube (MWCNT) which also attracted attention in the literature. Moreover, silver nanoparticles were also used to compare the effect of multiple fillers on conductivity. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene): poly(4-styrene-sulfonate), (PEDOT:PSS) were the two different host polymers that have been used to see the effect of the base polymer on conductivity. PDMS is a non-conductive polymer but more flexible while on the other hand PEDOT:PSS is a highly conductive polymer but less flexible.
Results show that using conductive polymer (PEDOT:PSS) as the host could increase the conductivity up to 378.97 S/m. The nanocomposite investigated was found to have excellent flexibility and well adhesion to the PDMS substrate. Also, based on the experiments, these conductive lines are sensitive to temperature, which is an attractive feature.