Conductance, polymer electrical properties thermal aging

The major difficulties involved in making electrically conductive thermoplastic blends using polyaniline, polypyrrole, or their composites, are two-fold. The first is the thermal instability of doped polyaniline and polypyrrole at melt processing temperatures (1-3), The second is the chemical incompatibility of acidic conductive polyaniline with acid sensitive polymers such as the nylons. Conductive polyaniline is quite acidic and the adjustment of its acidity to neutral pH values eliminates its high conductivity (4,5). The authors present here thermal aging studies of conductivity and thermal gravimetric analysis - mass spectroscopy (TGA-MS) of Eeonomers which show pH independence of conductivity in acidic to neutral environments. The tunable surface properties of Eeonomer composites allows one to optimize the processibility as well as the electrical and mechanical properties of their blends with various thermoplastics. 

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