Electrical properties of conductive polymer composites containing silver-coated glass particle and multi-walled carbon nanotube hybrid fillers

Abstract

Hybrid conductive polymer composites were prepared by conventional melt mixing method employing silver-coated glass particles and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT) as hybrid fillers and high density polyethylene (HDPE) as polymer matrix. The percolation behavior of HDPE/20 wt. % silver-coated glass particle/MWNT and HDPE/25 wt. % silver-coated glass particle/MWNT hybrid composites were examined and it was observed that both types of polymer composites clearly displayed percolated behavior. Experiments showed that the room temperature resistivity of hybrid composites decreased with increasing MWNT content and it was observed that higher loading of silver-coated glass particles content reduce the resistivity of hybrid composites. It was also found that hybrid composites containing 20 wt. % silver-coated glass particles with different weight percentages (0.5 wt. %., 0.55 wt. % and 0.6 wt. %) of MWNT and composites having 25 wt. % silver-coated glass particles with different weight percentages (0.4 wt. %., 0.5 wt. % and 0.6 wt. %) of MWNT exhibited positive temperature co-efficient (PTC) effect that occurred around the melting temperature of composites due to expansion of polymer matrix.