Negative Temperature Coefficient of Resistivity in Lightweight Conductive Carbon Nanotube/Polymer Composites

It is particularly difficult to prepare a foam CPC material because its porous structure makes it hard to form a conductive network. We utilized acetone-assisted dispersion to disperse CNTs into PU foam and successfully prepared a lightweight conductive CNT/assembled PU foam composite. The NTC effect, which exclusively exists in the melt state CPC materials, has unexpectedly been observed in the solid-state lightweight conductive CNT/sPU composite. Higher gas fraction and lower matrix modulus could result in stronger NTC effect. The mechanism that thermal expansion of gas wrapped in the cellular structure induces more perfect conductive paths has been proposed to satisfactorily elucidate the NTC effect and its gas fraction and matrix modulus dependence.