RESEARCHERS at the University of Queensland and New South Wales have developed a way to produce plastics which conduct electricity.
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RESEARCHERS at the University of Queensland and New South Wales have developed a way to produce plastics which conduct electricity.
Plastics normally conduct electricity very poorly, and are commonly used as insulation. However, they also carry desirable mechanical properties such as flexibility and low cost of production.
As such, there is considerable interest in making plastics conductive. This is achieved by changing the chemical structure of the molecules which make up the plastic, or filling the plastic with a natural conductor such as metal powder.
The new method from the Australian researchers, called ion beam metal mixing, coats a sheet of plastic with a very thin layer of tin.
The scientists then used a particle accelerator located at the ANSTO in Sydney to fire a beam of tin ions at the film.
The bombardment knocks some of the tin atoms forming the metal coating off the plastic entirely, reducing the amount of metal sitting on the surface. It also drives some of the surface tin atoms inwards, effectively blending the metal into the plastic surface.
Lastly, the ion beam destroys some of the chemical bonds in the plastic, releasing oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen and increasing the carbon content, enhancing the conductivity further.
Varying the metal film thickness and the speed of the tin ions in the bombarding beam allows adjustments in electrical resistance. The method can also produce superconducting films which pass an electrical current with no resistance at all when cooled to a sufficiently low temperature.
More information on this research can be found in Volume 12, issue 1 of the 17 January 2011 volume of ChemPhysChem.