Melt blending of carbon nanotubes/polyaniline/polypropylene compounds and their melt spinning to conductive fibres

Blends of polypropylene with polyaniline and multi-walled carbon nanotubes have been prepared and melt spun to fibre filaments. The resulted filaments have been characterised regarding conductivity, morphology, thermal and mechanical properties. DSC suggests that carbon nanotubes act as nucleating sites for PP/polyaniline blend. Electrical conductivity has been measured for blends with extruded rod shape, as-spun fibre filaments and fibres made under draw ratio of four. Polypropylene containing 20 wt% polyaniline polymer modified with 7.5 wt% carbon nanotubes shows the maximum conductivity among all the samples, about 0.16 S/cm. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.