Electrically conductive polyurethane is important in many applications, including flammable gas transportation and mobile electronic electromagnetic shielding. Traditionally, electrically conductive materials (metal, carbon black, graphite, carbon nanotube) are added to polyurethane by mechanical mixing. A high weight loading of those fillers is required to achieve the desired electrical properties, leading to high costs and changes in mechanical properties. In our work, graphene, a two-dimensional (2D) material, is spontaneously exfoliated into few layer graphene while acting as a surfactant to stabilize a water-in-oil emulsion. By using monomer as the oil phase, composites containing exfoliated graphene can be easily achieved with the water-in-oil emulsion templating the polymerization of polyurethane, forming an electrically conductive percolating network with a low weight loading (&lt; 2 wt%) of the graphene. Electrically conductive polyurethane composites are formed in one step using various water (DI water, CaCl2 solution, saturated CaCl2 solution) in oil (hexadecane, acetone, dry acetone, toluene, CHCl3, heptane, THF) emulsion systems. Isophorone diisocyanate is preferred in this type of system to minimize the side reaction between the isocyanate group and water. Different diols and polyols were also tested to check the mechanical and electrical properties of the resulting foams. Properties of the PU composites were characterized by using DMA, electrical conductivity measurements, SEM, TGA, and DSC.

One-step preparation of electrically conductive polyurethane composite by self-assembly of two-dimensional material

255th National Meeting (2018)

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