Studies on Nanocomposite Conducting Coatings

Abstract

Nanocomposite conducting coatings can impart stable surface electrical conductivity on the substrate. In this paper, carbon nanofiber (CNF) and nanographite (NG) are dispersed in thermoplastic polyurethane matrix and coated on the surface of glass and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film. The nanoparticles dispersion was studied under TEM. The coating thicknesses were estimated. Further, their resistance and impedance were measured. It has been observed that the 5 wt% CNF dispersed nanocomposite coatings show good conductivity. The use of NG can bring down the amount of CNF; however, NG alone has failed to show significant improvement in conductivity. The nanocomposite coating on PET film using 2.5 wt% of both CNF and NG gives frequency-independent impedance which indicates conducting network formation by the nanoparticles. The study was carried out at different test distances on nanocomposite coated PET films to observe the linearity and continuity of the conducting network, and the result shows reasonable linearity in impedance over total test length (from 0.5 cm to 4.5 cm). The impedance of nanocomposite coatings on glass is not frequency independent and also not following linear increase path with distance. This indicates that the dispersion uniformity is not maintained in the coating solution when it was coated on glass.

Carbon nanofillers incorporated electrically conducting poly ε-caprolactone nanocomposite films and their biocompatibility studies using MG-63 cell line

“…However, the results are more promising and higher when compared to the previous reports [43]. We achieved higher electrical conductivity using proper solvent [28] and optimized protocol based on our previous studies [12,17,26].…”

“…Electrically conductive flexible materials have also been used for various other applications such as strain sensors, stretchable conductors and foldable actuators to neural prosthetic interfaces [6][7][8][9][10][11]. Electrically conducting polymers are researched for these applications but most of these polymers like polypyrrole, polythiophenes are insoluble in common solvents (except polyaniline) and hence their processing is not so easy [12]. Among the biodegradable synthetic polymers, poly e-caprolactone (PCL) is widely used for several biomedical applications due to its high biocompatibility, high degradation time (around 2 years), excellent mechanical properties and ease in processing, etc.…”

Nanocomposite coatings on cotton and silk fibers for enhanced electrical conductivity

“…However, at high filler loading, the dispersion gets affected. Considering these, weight percentages of the nanofillers were selected based on our previous studies [13,[22][23][24]. The respective fillers were taken in a specific weight ratio with respect to TPU.…”

“…In our previous works, carbon nanoparticle based nanocomposite coatings and films show promise to impart stable and uniform electrical conductivity [22][23][24]. In the present work, carbon based electrically conducting nanofillers such as liquid exfoliated graphite (EG), nano graphite (NG), carbon nano fibers (CNF) and carbon nano tubes (CNT) were used to induce electrical conductivity in thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) matrix for development of nanocomposite coated conducting cotton yarn and silk filaments.…”