High-performance conductive materials based on the selective location of carbon black in poly(ether ether ketone)/polyimide matrix

A novel high performance conductive material with excellent comprehensive properties was prepared by melt-blending, and its performances were adjusted by controlling the selective location of carbon black (CB) in poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK)/thermoplastic polyimide (TPI) matrix. With increasing the CB loadings, the morphology of PEEK/TPI blends changed from sea-island to co-continuous structure, which was owing to the selective location of CB in TPI phase. Notably, with the selective location of CB in the induced co-continuous PEEK/TPI matrix, the electrical percolation threshold was reduced to 5 wt%, which was significantly lower than that of binary PEEK/CB (9 wt%) and TPI/CB (10 wt%) composites. And the electrical conductivity of ternary PEEK/TPI/CB composites was 10⁴ to 10⁶ times higher than that of binary composites at identical 7.5 wt% CB loading, which was attributed to the double percolation effect. Moreover, the incorporation of CB could improve the thermal and mechanical properties effectively.