A detail study concerning the strain (tensile) dependent electrical conductivity of elastomeric composites is reported in this present paper. Multiwall carbon nanotubes (CNT), conducting carbon black (CB), and their combinations were considered as conducting filler in cross-linked natural rubber matrix. The loadings of the fillers were considered from 3 to 11 phr (filler concentration close to their percolation threshold). Without hindering the elastic nature of the composite (reversible stretchability up to several 100%), the change of relative resistance, ΔR/R (ΔR is the change in the resistance with respect to strain and R is the initial resistance of the sample) of the CB filled composites was found to be as much as ∼1300 at around 120% elongation. This value is much higher than any other reported values obtained from conducting polymeric composites. It was found that CNT offered a strong strain dependent character in the regime 100% to 150% elongation, whereas, the carbon black filled natural rubber showed strong strain dependencies at 50% to 100% elongation strain. The combination of two different fillers could be exploited to tailor and manipulate the sensing operating regime from 50% to 150% strain depending on the ratios of the two filler system. Additionally, after several loading-unloading cycles, the conductivity of the sample was very stable for CB filled system but for CNT filled system the conductivity of the sample was altered. This type of elastic materials could be used in structural health monitoring, sensors in different dynamic elastomeric parts like tires, valves, gaskets, engine mounts, etc.

In the present work, a strong filler−filler network of conductive carbon black was strategically established in an elastomer matrix, which leads to a unique combination of electrical and mechanical properties. The novelty of our composites was the development of a strong percolated morphology of nanostructured conducting carbon black particles by the incorporation of relatively large nonreinforcing spherical silica particles, inside the soft elastomer matrix. This technique allowed us to fabricate solution styrene butadiene rubber (S-SBR) composites with outstanding electrical conductivity of 40 S/m, tensile strength ∼10 MPa, and extensibility up to 200%. Furthermore, the electrical conductivity was strain-independent up to 50% elongation strain. The electrical conductivity was found to be unaltered after 2000 loading−unloading cycles. This is the first ever report of a robust elastomeric system with such high electrical conductivity where all the basic ingredients used were selected from well-known commercially available raw materials of rubber industry. This work directly manifests an industrially viable method for preparing high-performance elastic conductors that can be utilized in robust and flexible applications.

A self-healing rubber/silica composite with superior mechanical performance was obtained by tuning specific noncovalent filler–matrix interactions.