Flexible Porous Carbon Black-Polymer Composites with a High Gauge Factor

Yi-Te Huang,Zhuqing Wang,Yu-Ching Lin,Takahito Ono,Naoki Inomata

doi:10.18494/sam.2020.2853

Abstract

Flexible Porous Carbon Black-Polymer Composites with a High Gauge Factor

Highlights

Research studies on microdevices for strain and pressure sensing have been extensively performed because of various potential applications,(1–3) including reliable, flexible, and sensitive strain and pressure sensors for upcoming robotic and IoT applications.[4,5,6,7] For flexible device applications, flexible materials sensitive to strain are one of the key technologies
Conductive polymer composites made of nonconductive polymer and conductive filler are potential candidates of flexible strain-sensitive sensing materials suitable for the microfabrication of soft strain and pressure sensors.[12,13] Carbon black (CB) with a zero-dimensional feature is one of the carbon allotropes and is often used as a conductive filler for polymer composites.[14,15] Carbon-based materials including carbon nanotubes and graphene have been used for improving mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties.[16,17,18] CB has the advantage over graphene and carbon nanotubes in terms of cost and accessibility; the gauge factors (GFs) of CB-based composites in strain sensing are mostly lower than 100.(19,20) a high-GF material based on the CB
The percolation effect determines the conductivity of a conductive polymer, which is the crucial point in strain sensing

Summary

Introduction

Research studies on microdevices for strain and pressure sensing have been extensively performed because of various potential applications,(1–3) including reliable, flexible, and sensitive strain and pressure sensors for upcoming robotic and IoT applications.[4,5,6,7] For flexible device applications, flexible materials sensitive to strain are one of the key technologies. Conductive polymer composites made of nonconductive polymer and conductive filler are potential candidates of flexible strain-sensitive sensing materials suitable for the microfabrication of soft strain and pressure sensors.[12,13] Carbon black (CB) with a zero-dimensional feature is one of the carbon allotropes and is often used as a conductive filler for polymer composites.[14,15] Carbon-based materials including carbon nanotubes and graphene have been used for improving mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties.[16,17,18] CB has the advantage over graphene and carbon nanotubes in terms of cost and accessibility; the gauge factors (GFs) of CB-based composites in strain sensing are mostly lower than 100.(19,20) a high-GF material based on the CB. Highly conductive nanoporous carbon black composite specimens with three types of matrix are synthesized and their GFs are evaluated

Methods

Results

Conclusion