The effects of temperature and frequency on the conductivity and dielectric properties of cotton fabric impregnated with doped PEDOT:PSS

Abstract

The ac electrical conductivity and dielectric properties of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate), abbreviated to PEDOT:PSS, and PEDOT:PSS cotton fabric were investigated over the frequency range of 10 Hz–13 MHz and temperatures ranging from 30 to 100 °C using impedance spectroscopy. Before experimentation raw cotton fabric was impregnated with PEDOT:PSS using the drop-casting and drying method to make the material conductive. Impedance plots of the conductive fabric with 21.7 wt% of PEDOT:PSS showed the presence of significant concavity of a parabola with peak reactance increased with increasing temperature indicating metallic behavior. The associated ac conductivity spectra indicate that the conduction process is thermally activated at various temperatures. Furthermore, the variation of the dc conductivity confirms that the PEDOT:PSS fabric exhibits the usual metallic behavior for all temperatures investigated. The magnitude of the dielectric constant is observed to be insensitive to variations in temperature. At low frequencies, the value of dielectric constant decreases with increasing the frequency. At high frequencies, the magnitude of dielectric constant have relatively constant values for all temperatures as frequency increases.