High dielectric loss
and low breakdown strength have been two bottlenecks
restricting applications of conductor/polymer composites for high
energy storage. Herein, three kinds of layered composites, named BC,
BCB, and CBC, were fabricated through stacking up hexagonal boron
nitride (hBN)/cyanate ester (CE) (B layer) on carbon nanotube (CNT)/CE
with 0.4 wt % CNTs (C layer). The effects of ply pattern and composition
on dielectric properties, breakdown strength, and energy density of
composites were investigated and also compared with those of single-layer
0.4CNT/CE composite containing 0.4 wt % of CNTs. Results show that
three kinds of layered composites have significantly reduced dielectric
loss and improved breakdown strength and energy density. Especially,
for the CBC composite with 20 wt % hBN in B layer (C20BC), its dielectric
constant is as high as 323 (100 Hz) and retains a value larger than
270 (1–103 Hz), it is the highest value reported
so far among multilayered composites based on conductor/polymer and
insulating layers; moreover, its breakdown strength and energy density
are about 1.5 and 25 times of that of 0.4CNT/CE composite, respectively.
Note that C20BC composite has very low dielectric loss (0.049 at 100
Hz) or much less at increased frequencies (>100 Hz), only about
2.6
× 10–3 times of that at 100 Hz of 0.4CNT/CE
composite. The origin behind these attractive properties was intensively
discussed.