The
morphology (location and distribution) of conductive fillers
in conductive filler/polymer nanocomposites has a decisive influence
on dielectric properties of a composite, so with the same components,
how to facilely control the morphology of nanofillers, build its relationship
with dielectric properties of the composite, and clearly reveal the
origin behind are still interesting challenges. Herein, a fixed loading
(0.4 wt %) of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) was embodied into
an incompatible poly(ether imide) (PEI)/bismaleimide (BD) system to
prepare a series of composites (0.4MWCNT/PEI/BD). As the PEI content
increases, the structure of composite successively changes from sea-island
to cocontinuous phase and phase inversion. More interestingly, MWCNTs
prefer to selectively distribute in the BD phase, tend to enrich around
the PEI dense zone, and arrange normally to the radius of the PEI
sphere zone, so the morphology of MWCNTs and thus dielectric properties
of composites can be facilely controlled. The dielectric constant
and loss of 0.4MWCNT/PEI/BD composite with 10 wt % PEI are about 4.5
and 0.1 times the values of 0.4MWCNT/BD composite, respectively, overcoming
the critical problem of available conductive filler/polymer composites.
Different equivalent circuits were built for these composites, revealing
the origin behind the method developed herein for controlling unique
dielectric properties of 0.4MWCNT/PEI/BD composites.
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