Electroactive thermoset shape memory polymer nanocomposite filled with nanocarbonpowders

Abstract

This paper concerns an electroactive thermoset styrene-based shape memory polymer (SMP)nanocomposite filled with nanosized (30 nm) carbon powders. With an increase of theincorporated nanocarbon powders of the SMP composite, its glass transition temperature (Tg) decreases and storage modulus increases. Due to the high micro-porosity andhomogeneous distributions of nanocarbon powders in the SMP matrix, the SMP compositeshows good electrical conductivity with a percolation of about 3.8%. This percolationthreshold is slightly lower than that of many other carbon-based conductive polymercomposites. Consequently, due to the relatively high electrical conductivity, asample filled with 10 vol% nanocarbon powders shows a good electroactive shaperecovery performance heating by a voltage of 30 V above a transition temperature of56–69 °C.