Malleable and Recyclable Conductive MWCNT-Vitrimer Composite for Flexible Electronics

Abstract

A novel conductive composite consisting of polyimine vitrimer matrix and multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) filler that allows bending, stretching, rehealing, and closed-loop recycling was developed. Such composites can be easily prepared by simply heating a mixed solution of the polyimine precursors and less than 10 wt % of MWCNTs. The resulting composites combine both advantages of the polyimine vitrimer (i.e., dynamic covalent bond exchange) and carbon nanotubes (i.e., electron conducting), and the as-fabricated thin films exhibit malleability, rehealability, recyclability and good electron conductivity. Impressively, the electrical conductivity of the composite could remain almost the same after bending, reshaping, rehealing, and reuse, thus making it an excellent candidate for flexible electronics. Moreover, such composites can also be fully recycled at the end of their service life, which would greatly reduce the electronic waste, manufacturing cost, and environmental impact.