Preparation of unsaturated polyester/graphite nanosheet conducting composite under electric field

Unsaturated polyester resin/graphite nanosheet composites were prepared using in situ polymerization under AC electric field which was applied during composite curing to induce orientation of graphite nanosheets. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques have been applied to demonstrate the orientation of graphite nanosheets and results showed that graphite nanosheets were oriented with their flakes parallel to the electric field. As a result, the percolation threshold was decreased to 0.25 wt% due to the orientation of the graphite naosheets.