Efficient construction and online evaluation of conductive networks within polydimethylsiloxane composites via continuous SCFNA method

Abstract Although conductive polymer composites present great potential in flexible sensor, energy storage, and other applications, the efficient construction and simultaneous evaluation of conductive networks within them still face big difficulties. In this paper, an extrusion equipment with gradually narrowed flow channel was designed for continuous preparation of conductive polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composites via spatial confining forced network assembly (SCFNA) method. By changing processing parameters, the dispersion and aggregation status of short carbon fibers (SCFs) can finally reach a stable state and form conductive networks with different qualities. Besides, we furtherly developed an online monitoring and detection method via image analysis technique to evaluate the completion degree of these conductive networks. The combination of self-designed equipment and image analysis technique could realize real continuous preparation and quality evaluation of conductive polymer composites. Moreover, this combination is also conducive to the study on the mechanism of conductive network evaluation under external forces.