Highly conductive polymer composites with excellent toughness, fluidity and temperature‐independent conductivity

Conductive polymer composites of low melting point metal/ high melting point metal/polymer were prepared by melt mixing and investigated the effects of Sn-to-Cu content ratio on the microstructure and properties of Sn/Cu/PA6 ternary composites with a metal content of 53.3 vol %. The results show that Sn reacts with Cu to form intermetallic compounds during melting processing. When V-Sn/V-Cu is less than 1.5, the metal phase is a solid. However, if V-Sn/V-Cu is higher than 1.5, the metal phase is a suspension. As V-Sn/V-Cu increases, the morphology of metal phase changes from "islands" to physically continuous networks, and the Volume resistivity, impact strength and complex viscosity of the composites can reach 1.11 x 10(-4) omega cm, 3.8 kJ/m(2) and 2.4 x 10(3) Pa s, respectively. Moreover, the resistivity of the composites with physically continuous networks is almost independent of temperature. The combination of low and high melt point metals can be considered as a useful strategy to prepare conductive polymer composites with high performance. (c) 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019, 137, 48820.