Electrically conductive plastics

1. Introduction to electric plastics
Conductive plastics refer to a class of polymers with a volume resistivity of less than 1MΩ•cm, or a conductivity greater than 2s/cm.
At least until the 80s of the 20th century, plastics were considered to be absolutely non-conductor materials. In 1977, the Japanese scholar K . Siakawa and Mac . Diarmid developed polyacetylene with a volume resistivity of 1KΩ•cm for the first time, and in 1986, after biaxially stretching modification, the conductivity can reach 104~105s/cm, which is close to the conductivity of copper and silver.
At present, the varieties of conductive plastics that have been developed are: polyaniline (Pan), poly-p-phenylene (PPp), polyacetylene (Pa), poly-p-phenylacetylene (PPv), polypyrrole (Ppy) and polythiophene (PTh).
The actual conductivity of pure conductive resin is not good, but after doping, the conductivity can be greatly improved and become a conductive plastic.
Conductive plastics have the advantages of light weight, anti-corrosion, anti-rust, etc., and are a very promising type of conductive materials. However, although conductive polymers have been studied for more than 20 years so far, they are still far from being applied on a large scale. For example, in terms of electrode materials, optoelectronic materials, etc., conductive plastics are still not competitive. This is mainly due to the following reasons:
(1) Poor processability So far, conductive polymers do not have the processing characteristics of fusible thermoplastics, and there are not many varieties of soluble polymers, only soluble PAn and poly3-long-chain alkyl thiophene. Most polymers are insoluble and difficult to process. Soluble polymers can only be molded by solution cast.
(2) Poor stability With the development of aromatic heterocyclic conductive polymers, the problem of chemical and environmental instability of conductive polymers has been solved, but the instability of the dopants itself will also lead to the instability of conductive polymers.
(3) It is difficult to synthesize polymers with uniform structure Conductive polymers have defects in chemical structure, and condensed matter at all levels also has polydispersity.
(4) The price is high.