The decoupling electrical and thermal conductivity of fullerene/polyaniline hybrids reinforced polymer composites

Hybrid nanoparticles, fullerene (C₆₀) and polyaniline (PANI), were incorporated into the polydivinylbenzene (PDVB), and their decoupling effect of electrical and thermal conductivity was investigated. The hybrid particles were fabricated through simple one-step process in the solution of divinylbenzene (DVB) monomer. The morphology and structure were characterized by TEM, SEM and FTIR. After the incorporation of C₆₀/PANI hybrids into DVB monomer, the electrical conductivity was improved significantly while the thermal conductivity was reduced simultaneously, resulting in effectively decoupling thermal/electrical conductivity. The AC electrical conductivity increased from 9 × 10⁻¹⁰ S/m to 63.7 S/m at the frequency of 1 Hz, more than 10 orders of magnitude. On the contrary, the thermal conductivity was reduced to extremely low of only 0.164 W/m·K from 0.579 W/m·K. Dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulations was also conducted to gain further understanding about the decoupling effect and mechanisms related to dispersibility of C₆₀ in polymer system. The DPD results exhibited better agreement with the experiment results of electrical and thermal conductivity. These results indicate that DPD can be a versatile method for designing functional polymer composites. Simultaneously, the decoupling of electrical and thermal conductivity of polymer bulk composites opens diverse opportunities for new materials and systems.