Soft conductive silicone composites based on carbon nanotubes modified with ferrocenyl-containing polysiloxanes

Soft, flexible and conductive silicone composites reinforced with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are widely used in the field of (opto)electronics and (bio)medicine [1]. Usually, non-modified carbon fillers demonstrate poor distribution in polymer matrices resulting in the deterioration of composite properties. In order to obtain high-performance materials and devices, the surface of carbon filler can be functionalized with polymers. Among polymers, ferrocenyl-containing polysiloxanes can be used due to the unique properties of polysiloxanes, their ability to interact with the CNT surface as well as the presence of redox-active moieties allowing the use of the resulting material for sensing technologies, energy storage devices, etc. [2].

Thus, we used two different approaches to functionalize CNT with ferrocenyl-containing polysiloxanes. In this study, ferrocenyl-containing (poly)siloxanes bearing 100 mol.% of ferrocenyl groups were grafted to the CNT surface via the covalent ligand exchange reaction. Simultaneously the CNT was modified using a non-covalent approach and the synergistic interaction of ferrocenyl-containing polysiloxanes and CNT. The successful modification of CNT was confirmed using Raman and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The modified CNTs were used as filler for soft, flexible and conductive silicone composites. The level of specific resistivity in the obtained composites was measured using broadband dielectric spectroscopy [2,3].

This study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (project 24-13-00038).