Investigation of the conductivity of graphene as a powder, a coating and a polymer blend

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Graphene is a two-dimensional monolayer of carbon atoms organized in a hexagonal lattice. NanoXplore hasexpertise on graphene production at a low cost, large volume and highly scalable. However, NanoXplore needsmore information of the conductivity of its own graphene powders and baseline carbon black as a guide todesign coating formulations. The new intended applications of graphene-based coating are electrostaticdischarge for antenna, of great commercial potential. NanoXplore has an important line of activity in grapheneand needs more investigations on several aspects including: coating materials and methods, durability,conductivity. The general objective of this proposal is to measure the conductive of graphene powders (versusother commonly used conductive additives) and its composites (coating and polymer blends) to betterunderstand how to target coating formulation. The specific objectives are the following: 1) benchmark theconductivity of the graphene and carbon black powders; 2) preparation and optimization conductivegraphene/polymer coating to dissipate charges from antennae; 3) investigation of the conductivity ofimmiscible polymer blends (semicrystalline and amorphous polymers). To achieve the objective 1, a protocolwas recently developed at ETS to measure the electrical conductivity of solid powders using a high impactpolymeric sample container and a 4-wire multimeter. Powder compaction is controlled with a universalmechanical testing machine. To achieve the objective 2, epoxy and polyester coatings are prepared and thegraphene content is optimized via the conductivity measurement. In the objective 3, we propose a novelmethod to prepare ultra-low percolation threshold conductive polymer by controlling the morphology of theblends and the interface. The tangible applications of this research are ultralow percolation thresholdconductive polymers, high performance polymer blends and antenna electrostatic discharge materials.