Electrical conductivity enhancement of Carbon/Epoxy composites using nanoparticles

The present research work was aimed at developing conductive polymer-based composites in order to have a higher conductivity than the standard level of the Energy Institute of America. In this case, the composites can be applied to make electrodes. For this purpose, carbon clack particles, carbon nanotube and expanded graphite with different weight percentages (5%, 10%, 15%, 25%, and 35%) were added to the epoxy resin and the electrical conductivity of the samples was measured according to the four-point standard method. The average electrical conductivity threshold for carbon clack particles, carbon nanotube and expanded graphite was determined at 25, 10, and 15, respectively. Furthermore, the effect of different construction parameters such as the use of vacuum pumps and heating on the electrical conductivity of the composite samples was also investigated. The experiments revealed that the use of the vacuum pump increased the electrical conductivity by 10.8%, 11.4% and 9.6% in carbon black, carbon nanotube, and expanded graphite samples, respectively. In order to increase the mechanical strength of the conductive polymer samples, ten layers of unidirectional carbon fabric were used. The results obtained showed that the use of carbon fibers enhanced the electrical conductivity by 23.2%, 27.3%, and 24.7% for carbon black, expanded graphite, and carbon nanotube samples, respectively. Ultimately, using the scanned electron microscopy images, the quality of the nanoparticle distribution in the samples was investigated.