Silver nanowire as an efficient filler for high conductive polyurethane composites

ABSTRACT

Composites of silver nanowires (AgNWs) and polyurethane (PU) were prepared and their properties evaluated for potential applications as electrically conducting materials. Polyurethanes were chosen as the base substrate because of their inherent biocompatibility, biostability, excellent processability and good mechanical properties. The composites were prepared with varying content of AgNW by a solvent casting method. The electrical conductivity of the resulting composites was assessed using a 4-probe conductivity method and a maximum conductivity of 352.6 S cm^–1 was achieved with 25% AgNW loading. The composite films were then characterised by various techniques to investigate the structure–property relationships. The above-mentioned analyses showed that the composite films retained the tensile and thermal properties of the parent PU while showing excellent conductivity.

KEYWORDS:

• Polymer composites
• silver nanowires
• polyurethane
• electrical conductivity

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Dr Ajay Padsalgikar of St Jude Medical for providing Elast-Eon™ Samples and Mark Greaves in CSIRO for his help with performing SEM.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability

The raw/processed data required to reproduce these findings cannot be shared at this time as the data also forms part of a continuing study.