Electrically conductive epoxy nanocomposites containing carbonaceous fillers and in-situ generated silver nanoparticles

An epoxy resin was nanomodified with in-situ generated silver nanoparticles (Ag) and with various amounts of carbon black (CB) and carbon nanofibers (NF), in order to increase the electrical conductivity of the matrix. Differential scanning calorimetry tests revealed how the addition of both CB and NF led to a slight decrease of the glass transition temperature of the material, while electron microscopy evidenced how the dimension of CB aggregates increased with the filler content. Both flexural modulus and stress at yield were decreased by CB addition, and the introduction of Ag nanoparticles promoted an interesting improvement of the flexural resistance. CB resulted to be more effective than NF in decreasing the electrical resistance of the materials down to 103 !·cm. Therefore, a rapid heating of the CB-filled samples upon voltage application was observed, while Ag nanoparticles allowed a stabilization of the temperature for elevated voltage application times.