Electrically conductive epoxy-based nanocomposite adhesives loaded with silver-coated copper and silver-coated reduced graphene oxide nanoparticles

In this research, a conductive adhesive based on epoxy resin as the polymer matrix and silver-coated copper powder and silver-coated reduced graphene oxide as conductive fillers was synthesized. Graphene oxide was synthesized by modified Hummer's method. It was reduced and modified by silver powder. Copper particles were coated with silver using the electroless plating method. Finally, conductive nanocomposite adhesives were prepared using conductive fillers with different weight fractions. The structural properties of fillers were identified by Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) and induced coupled plasma (ICP) analysis and the morphology of the samples by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Finally, conductive properties, lap shear strength, and thermal stability of adhesive were evaluated. The conductive adhesive prepared with optimized properties have 70% weight percentage silver-coated copper powder and 1% weight percentage silver-coated reduced graphene oxide. The bulk resistivity of the optimum sample was 1.6 x 10(-2) omega.cm, and the lap shear strength was 7.10 MPa. Also, thermogravimetric analysis showed that the weight loss of adhesive decreased from 88.72% to 30.55% during heating, which showed the addition of fillers improves the thermal stability of adhesive.