A new process of fabricating electrically conducting nylon 6/graphite nanocomposites via intercalation polymerization

✍ Scribed by Yu-Xun Pan; Zhong-Zhen Yu; Yu-Chun Ou; Guo-Hua Hu

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 289 KB
• Volume: 38
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0887-6266
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0488(20000615)38:12<1626::aid-polb80>3.0.co;2-r

✦ Synopsis

A new process was developed to fabricate electrically conducting nylon 6/graphite nanocomposites via intercalation polymerization of ⑀-caprolactam in the presence of expanded graphite. The transition from an electrical insulator to an electrical semiconductor for nylon 6 occurred when the graphite volume content was 0.75, which was much lower than that of conventional conducting polymer composites. The electrical conductivity reached 10 Ϫ4 S/cm when the graphite content was 2.0 vol %. The TEM microphotographs suggested that the low percolation threshold and the great improvement of electrical conductivity could be attributed to the high aspect ratio (width-to-thickness), the high expansion ratio in c axis of the graphite sheets and the homogeneous dispersion of the nanoscale graphite particles in the nylon 6 matrix.