Electrical conductivity and mechanical properties of carbon black modified polyolefinic blends influenced by phase inversion

Electrically conductive polymer composites (CPCs) containing a carbonaceous filler and a polymeric matrix have been widely researched and utilized. Immiscible polymers are often used as the matrix of CPCs, which leads to segregated structures, hence low percolation threshold and good conductivity of a material. Polymeric blends often show low mechanical properties due to the lack of affinity of the resins. A way to improve toughness of a CPC and maintain good electrical properties is mixing two immiscible yet compatible resins. In our case one of them was polyethylene and the other was an olefinic conductive thermoplastic elastomer. In this study, a correlation between conductivity, mechanical properties, and morphology of conductive blends was analyzed. Results of tensile test, conductivity measurements, and differential scanning calorimetry were juxtaposed with information of phase morphology of the blends. A relationship of drastic changes of different properties of the blends and phase inversion point was found. (c) 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017, 134, 45512.