Bio-based, electrical conductive PLA films containing silver nanowires

The bio-derived polymer, poly lactic acid (PLA) has been incorporated in a silver nanowire (AgNW) network to form a transparent, flexible and highly conductive composite film. AgNWs were synthesized through a polyol method and three different types of wires were obtained. It was found that by increasing the cooking time, thicker wires could be achieved and this is proved by SEM. Ag NW/PLA nanocomposite films were fabricated using a simple casting technique. It was observed that the wires were perfectly embedded into the PLA matrix and this resulted in high oxidation resistance, better smoothness of the surface and high electrical conductivity of the films. The success in fabricating highly flexible and highly conductive AgNW/PLA films demonstrates that these high-performance AgNW based conducting films which are environmentally friendly could be a promising candidate for replacing Indium tin oxide (ITO) films