Nonlinear Conductive Characteristics of ZnO-Coated Graphene Nanoplatelets-Carbon Nanotubes/Epoxy Resin Composites

Abstract

With the increasing threats arising from the electromagnetic environment, polymeric composites which could exhibit nonlinear conductive characteristics are highly required in the protection of electronic devices against overvoltage. In this research, ZnO nanoparticles are coated onto graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs)-carbon nanotubes (CNTs) hybrid, and then it is embedded in epoxy resin (ER) matrix via solution blending. Based on the characterization results, CNTs are well dispersed across the GNPs which prevent the restacking of GNPs and CNTs. At the same time, ZnO nanoparticles are well-bonded to the surfaces of GNPs-CNTs hybrid. During repeated conductive characteristic measurements, GNPs-CNTs-ZnO/ER composite is able to demonstrate distinctly reversible nonlinear conductive behavior, with high nonlinear coefficients. Especially, the filler content in GNPs-CNTs-ZnO/ER composite is only 12.5% of that in GNPs-ZnO/ER composite reported in our previous work. Moreover, it is shown that the nonlinear coefficients and switching threshold voltage can be modified by controlling the weight ratios of GNPs, CNTs, and ZnO. Finally, the samples with 1:1 weight ratio of GO to MWCNTs (A-6.67 and A-10) exhibit the best reversible nonlinear conductive behavior.