Royal Society of Chemistry, RSC Advances, 70(5), p. 56590-56598, 2015
DOI: 10.1039/c5ra08118a
Full text: Download
Silver nanowires (AgNWs) were synthesized by AC electrodeposition of Ag into porous aluminum oxide templates. AgNWs were embedded into polystyrene via a solution processing technique to create a nanocomposite. For comparison, carbon nanotube (CNT)/polystyrene nanocomposites were generated identically. TEM and XRD analyses showed that AgNWs had an average diameter and length of 25nm and 3.2µm, respectively. TEM images also revealed that at molding temperature (240ºC) AgNWs transformed into a chain of nanospheres. At low filler loadings, the AgNW/polystyrene nanocomposites presented inferior electrical properties compared to CNT/polystyrene nanocomposites. This was attributed to lower aspect ratio, fragmentation phenomenon and poorer conductive network for AgNWs. However, at high filler loadings, the electrical properties of the AgNW/polystyrene nanocomposites significantly surpassed. It seems that at high filler loadings, the conductive network was well-established for both types of nanocomposites and thus, higher innate conductivity of AgNWs played a dominant role in presenting superior electrical properties.