The decoupling electrical and thermal conductivity of fullerene/polyaniline hybrids reinforced polymer composites

Hybrid nanoparticles, fullerene (C60) and polyaniline (PANI), were incorporated into the polydivinylbenzene (PDVB), and their decoupling effect of electrical and thermal conductivity was investigated. The hybrid particles were fabricated through simple one-step process in the solution of divinylbenzene (DVB) monomer. The morphology and structure were characterized by TEM, SEM and FTIR. After the incorporation of C60/PANI hybrids into DVB monomer, the electrical conductivity was improved significantly while the thermal conductivity was reduced simultaneously, resulting in effectively decoupling thermal/electrical conductivity. The AC electrical conductivity increased from 9 × 10−10 S/m to 63.7 S/m at the frequency of 1 Hz, more than 10 orders of magnitude. On the contrary, the thermal conductivity was reduced to extremely low of only 0.164 W/m·K from 0.579 W/m·K. Dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulations was also conducted to gain further understanding about the decoupling effect and mechanisms related to dispersibility of C60 in polymer system. The DPD results exhibited better agreement with the experiment results of electrical and thermal conductivity. These results indicate that DPD can be a versatile method for designing functional polymer composites. Simultaneously, the decoupling of electrical and thermal conductivity of polymer bulk composites opens diverse opportunities for new materials and systems.