A new process of fabricating electrically conducting nylon 6/graphite nanocomposites via intercalation polymerization

Abstract

A new process was developed to fabricate electrically conducting nylon 6/graphite nanocomposites via intercalation polymerization of ϵ-caprolactam in the presence of expanded graphite. The transition from an electrical insulator to an electrical semiconductor for nylon 6 occurred when the graphite volume content was 0.75, which was much lower than that of conventional conducting polymer composites. The electrical conductivity reached 10−4 S/cm when the graphite content was 2.0 vol %. The TEM microphotographs suggested that the low percolation threshold and the great improvement of electrical conductivity could be attributed to the high aspect ratio (width-to-thickness), the high expansion ratio in c axis of the graphite sheets and the homogeneous dispersion of the nanoscale graphite particles in the nylon 6 matrix. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci B: Polym Phys 38: 1626–1633, 2000