Phosphonium-based ionic liquid as dispersing agent for MWCNT in melt-mixing polystyrene blends: Rheology, electrical properties and EMI shielding effectiveness

Conducting nanocomposites composed with polystyrene (PS) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) were prepared by melt mixing procedure assisted by trihexyl-(tetradecyl)-phosphonium combined with bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl) amide counteranion (TFSI) as the ionic liquid (IL). The non-covalent functionalization of MWCNT with the IL was confirmed by Raman spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis. The functionalized MWCNT provided better dispersion of the MWCNT within PS matrix, as indicated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and also an electrical conductivity as high as 10−1 S/m with 0.66 m% of MWCNT combined with 3.34 m% of IL. This value is around four orders of magnitude higher when compared to nanocomposites with similar amount of untreated MWCNT. From rheological studies, it was observed that the transition between liquid-like to solid-like behavior occurred at lower frequencies for the systems containing functionalized MWCNT. Moreover, an improvement of around 170% in the electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness (EMI SE) in the X-band frequency range was observed for the nanocomposites containing 1% of MWCNT non-covalently functionalized with the IL, that is, 1% of MWCNT and 5% of IL.