Tune the phase morphology to design conductive polymer composites: A review

Conductive polymer composites (CPCs) can endow the insulating polymer materials with conductive function via loading the conductive fillers into polymer matrices, which have received intensive attention from both the academy and industry. Since the electronic transmission is based on the conductive network in the polymer matrices, the electrical properties of the CPCs depend on not only the electrical qualities of the conductive fillers but also the phase morphologies of the composites. Though great progress has been made in designing the CPCs by tuning the phase morphology, only very limited reviews focused on this issue. In this article, recent developments in utilizing various phase morphologies such as the co-continuous morphology and the segregated morphology to design CPCs with the controllable electrical properties are systematically reviewed. Finally, an overview of the current challenges and further developments of CPCs is discussed. POLYM. COMPOS., 39:2985-2996, 2018. (c) 2017 Society of Plastics Engineers