Electrically conductive nanocomposites with segregated structure based on poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-tetrafluoroethylene) and reduced graphene oxide

Abstract

An approach was described to obtaining polymer composites with segregated structure that have high electrical conductivity at low concentrations of an electrically conductive filler. According to this approach, thin layers of electrically nonconductive nanodispersed graphene oxide are applied to the surface of polymer particles and conduction is produced by heat and chemical treatments. Hot pressing of the modified powder leads to combination of layers of the graphene-like filler to form a single electrically conductive network. For the first time, reduction of graphene oxide on the surface of polymer particles with hydrazine vapor at room temperature was performed. Comparison of the electrical conductivities of composites obtained by the thermal and chemical methods of graphene oxide reduction showed that the chemical reduction method gives composites with higher conductivities than the thermal method does. The maximum conductivity (0.5 S/m) was reached in a composite containing 0.6% chemically reduced graphene oxide.