INFLUENCE OF CARBON NANOTUBES ON THE ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY OF PVDF/PANI/MWCNT NANOCOMPOSITES AT LOW TEMPERATURES

The electrical properties of films of a new ternary nanocomposite - the dielectric polymer polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), the conducting polymer polyaniline doped with dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid (PANI), and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs, 0-15 wt.%) - have been studied. Based on the results of electrical resistance, R, experiments in a wide temperature, T, interval of 4.2-300 K, it is shown that, at low temperatures, the charge transfer in the nanocomposites with the indicated MWCNT contents takes place via the tunneling of charge carriers between localized states and following the mechanism of variable-range hopping conductivity, R similar to exp[(T-0/T)(1/2)]. It is found that the characteristic temperature T-0 and the temperature interval of the hopping conductivity depend on the MWCNT content. In particular, the increase of the MWCNT content in the nanocomposite films lowers the characteristic temperature T-0 by two orders of magnitude and narrows the temperature interval, where the hopping conductivity is observed, with the most pronounced changes occurring within an MWCNT content interval of 5-7.5 wt. %.