Conductive polymer composites (CPCs) consist of a polymeric matrix and a conductive fil-er, for example, carbon black, carbon fibers,graphite or carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The criti-cal amount of the electrically conductive fillernecessary to build up a continuous conductive network, and accordingly, to make the material conductive; is referred to as the percolation threshold. From technical and economical viewpoints, it is desirable to decrease the conduc-tive-fillerpercolation-threshold as much as possible. In this study, we investigated the effect of polymer/conductive-fillerinteractions, as well as the processing and morphological devel-opment of low-percolation-threshold (Φc) conductive-polymer composites. The aim of the study was to produce conductive composites containing less multi-walled CNTs (MWCNTs) than required for pure polypropylene (PP) through two approaches: one using various mix-ing methods and the other using immiscible polymer blends. Variants of the conductive PP composite filledwith MWCNT was prepared by dry mixing, melt mixing, mechanofusion, and compression molding. The percolation threshold (Φc) of the MWCNT-PP composites was most successfully lowered using the mechanofusion process than with any other mixing method (2-5 wt%). The mechanofusion process was found to enhance formation of a perco-lation network structure, and to ensure a more uniform state of dispersion in the CPCs. The immiscible-polymer blends were prepared by melt mixing (internal mixer) poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVD, PP/PVDF, volume ratio 1:1) filled with MWCN.

• Park, Seung Bin(Lotte Chemical Research Center)
• Lee, Moo Sung( School of Applied Chemical Engineering, Chonnam National University) | Lee, Moo Sung
• Park, Min( Soft Innovative Materials Research Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology) | Park, Min