High-Performance Conductive Polymer Composites by Incorporation of Polyaniline-Wrapped Halloysite Nanotubes and Silver Microflakes

Abstract

Conductive polymer composites (CPCs) with high conductivity and flexibility play a crucial role in emerging flexible electronics. However, the facile fabrication of high-performance flexible conductors is still challenging due to cumbersome manufacturing steps and the need for expensive metal nanomaterials as conductive fillers. Herein, we presented a facile and cost-effective method to prepare CPCs with an ultralow resistivity of 2.4 × 10–5 Ω·cm at 60% silver micronflakes. The elastic CPCs are simply composed of conductive cofillers of commercial silver micronflakes and polyaniline/halloysite nanotubes (PANI/HNTs) and water-based polyurethane (WPU) resin as the matrix. With a delicate design, the PANI/HNTs could locate adjacent silver micronflakes in the WPU resin and form conducting paths to improve the electrically conductive performance of the composites significantly. Thus, the CPCs serve as flexible conductors showing high conductivity and excellent stability during numerous cyclic mechanical deformations, such as bending, stretching, twisting, and folding. These advantages make the valuable materials candidates for the next generation of flexible conductors.