Hybrid Carbon–Silver Nanofillers for Composite Coatings with Near Metallic Electrical Conductivity

Abstract

Polymeric composite materials are now very well established in all areas of engineering and are still increasingly being used to replace metallic counterparts. As an important advantage, composite materials hold the promise of multifunctionality, that is, fine tuning the material composition to synthetically achieve specific requirements. Among these requirements, the electrical conductivity is still limited to values orders of magnitude below those of typical metals. An approach to conductive fillers, which involves taking advantage of the favorable properties of both carbonaceous and metallic fillers to provide near metallic conductivity to the surface of carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites is herein presented by the authors. The synthesis of hybrid core‐shell high aspect ratio carbon–silver nanoparticles with a continuous silver coating, which allows both a low contact resistance between individual fillers and a greater connectivity owing to the wire‐like morphology of the particles is achieved by the authors. Incorporating the nanoparticles in an epoxy matrix yields a conductivity of 2.5 × 105 S m−1 at a loading of 6.3 vol% for a corresponding material density is of 1.9 g cm−3. The conductivity reached is high enough even to divert emulated lightning strike energy.

Hybrid‐Filler Stretchable Conductive Composites: From Fabrication to Application

“…They also aggregate easily and are difficult to disperse well in the matrix. Fortunately, both problems can be solved by adding auxiliary fillers such as metal NPs or dispersants to the composites [4b,6,57] . On the other hand, adding carbon or polymer secondary fillers to metal‐filled SCCs is also a common method to enhance mechanical properties such as mechanical strength, stretchability, and cyclic load stability.…”

Effect of ferrous, nickel, and tungsten fillers reinforcement on glass fiber reinforced vinyl ester/polyester composites

“…The target of the lightning strike shielding is to produce conductive ways on the outer structures of the airplane, to influence the lightning allegations to perform promptly, and to decrease the damage to the aircraft. To enhance the conductivity of carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites, there are some lightning strike shielding layers reinforced, such as different composites, 15 metal nanomaterials, 16,17 metal foils, 18,19 and metal meshes. 20 General lightning strike shielding components are metallic foil or mesh fabricated from aluminum or copper with average conductivity to deplete the lightning strike energy.…”