Conductive Elastomer Composites Based on Inherent and Extrinsic Conductive Polymers

Printed Electronics is the designation given to a set of new technological routes for the manufacture of electronic devices which are light, discrete, flexible, and capable of folding. These devices require power sources that share these properties. This paper is focused on how to obtain electrically conductive elastomer composites. These elastomeric composite materials are obtained by mechanical mixing of electronic and ionic conductive polymers with commercial grade styrene-butadiene rubbers (SBS). The produced materials had good capacitance, thus performing well as rechargeable batteries. These materials were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electrical conductivity measurements to quantify the abundance and distribution of conductive polymers within the rubbery matrix. Our generated experimental results were used to test the predictive power of two mathematical equations based on Hashin-Shtrikman models and composites theory, respectively. Electrical conductivity vs voltage profiles for these conductive elastomer composites were adequately predicted by these models.