Investigating effect of nanofillers alignment on conductivity of polymer/CNT nanocomposites

In this paper, we have investigated the electrical properties of conductive polymer/CNT nanocomposites withaligned filler using the mean field theory. For this purpose, the effect of diameter and length of the CNT nanoparticle aswell as the interphase region on the electrical properties and percolation threshold of the conductive polymer-CNTnanocomposites are studied. The particles in this model are placed in one direction and the conductivity of the particlesis calculated in two main directions. The results show that increasing the length of CNT and decreasing its diameter, notonly increases the conductivity of the nanocomposite but also reduces the electrical percolation. In other words, theadhesion of the CNT particles to each other reduces the aspect ratio and thus reduces the performance of the conductivepolymer. Also, aligning the particles in one direction causes a significant increase in conductivity and a decrease inpercolation threshold in polymer/CNT nanocomposites.