Selective localization of multi-walled carbon nanotubes in thermoplastic elastomer blends: An effective method for tunable resistivity–strain sensing behavior

Mechanical vs. electrical hysteresis of carbon nanotube/styrene–butadiene–styrene composites and their influence in the electromechanical response

“…Piezoresistive properties of both copolymer composites with 4 wt% CNT show that the GF increases with increasing deformation in the composite. This is in agreement to theoretical approaches that, under stress, the conductivity in these composites occurs mainly by the styrene (hard) phase within the copolymer and that there is low variation within the styrene phase for low deformations [17]. Increasing strain increases the deformation on the styrene phase and the electrical variation increases accordingly, leading to larger CNT network variations and therefore to increasing GF of the composites.…”

“…Further, the electrical pathways in the butadiene phase show larger variations than the pathways in styrene phase, as illustrated in Fig. 4, due to the different initial modulus and stress at tensile of the composite phases [17].…”

“…Thus, depending on the morphology and as a consequence of stress distribution within the specimen during deformation, the orientation in the individual hard and soft phase is quietly different. By comparing composites in which CNT were placed preferentially on SBS, thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) or in both of them [17], it was found the highest sensibility and CNT orientation for a given strain is obtained in composite where the CNT are preferentially inside SBS, the copolymer with a lower initial modulus, compared to TPU [17]. This is in agreement with our results, where CNT must show larger orientation and relative separation from each other in the soft material within the copolymer, butadiene in our materials, causing larger rearrangements in the conductive pathways.…”

“…The block structures of PB and PS domains depend on the different block structure which ranges approximately between 10 and 25 nm [15,16]. The SBS as a matrix for electromechanical sensors, shows higher piezoresistive sensibility than others TPEs [17].…”

A facile melt coating approach to fabricate macroscopic segregated polymer/carbon nanotube conductive composites with balanced properties

“…4, a drastic increase in electrical conductivity is observed as the CNTs concentration ranged from 0 to 0.03 vol%, in which the electrical conductivity is increased by 10 orders of magnitude. Comparing to the previous literature [10,13,19], the loading content of the conductive filler in this work is quite low, but surprisingly high electrical conductivity can be achieved, demonstrating the high efficiency of our method in forming segregated conductive network in CPCs. The fabrication process of PLA/PPC5 can offer insights into their electrical properties.…”