Metal filaments/nano-filler filled hybrid polymer fibers with improved conductive performance

Traditional conductive/anti-static polymer fibers are easily invalid because the conductive networks formed by fillers such as carbon black, carbon nanotubes or titanium dioxides are easy to be destroyed during drawing process. In order to overcome the insurmountable weakness of current conductive/antistatic polymer fibers, a new type of conductive/anti-static fiber has been developed by using low melting point alloy (LMPA) as the conductive filler. The metal filament filled conductive/anti-static fibers perform much better than normal fibers because drawing could make their conductive networks denser instead of destroying them. Another notable finding of our research is that blending of nonconductive montmorillonite could improve the dispersity and stability of metal filaments, and further the conductivity of the polymer fibers. Based on this method, a composite polypropylene fiber with 2 vol% LMPA and 2 vol% carbon nanotubes is fabricated, of which the resistivity can be as low as 8.3 x 10(4) Omega m. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.