Removing the effects of temperature and of inappropriate critical point proximity on the electrical resistivity percolation exponent

•We report a successful method to find reliable values of the percolating exponent t.•We suggest rational strategies to rule out the effects of the temperature and of the concentration range on percolation exponent determination.•Our results suggest that some of the non-universal values of the exponent t reported in the literature can be caused by these spurious effects.

Percolating systems have been widely studied, but questions remain elusive: How to define the critical range where the standard percolation equation would be properly applicable, and the universal exponent t would be found? How to remove external effects, such as temperature, which would dramatically have an influence on the t determination? The lack of clear answers may be the reason for the spread of t exponents reported in the literature. Here we suggest rational methods to rule out such spurious effects and to reliably find the t exponent. We hope our work will call the readers׳ attention to how to carefully carry out experiments on percolating systems.