Plasma preparation of carbon black used in conductive coatings

A conductive coatings was prepared using a kind of spherical carbon black (CB) as conductive pigment and polyacrylate (PA) as polymer matrix. The conductive pigment CB nanoparticles were prepared by AC plasma arc method, and then treated with concentrated nitric acid. The pristine and oxidized CB nanoparticles were characterized by scanning and transmission electron microscopy. Afterwards, CB powders were dispersed in PA to produce conductive coatings. The effects of CB content and titanium coupling agent on the volume resistivity were investigated. Furthermore, the rheological and mechanical properties of PA/CB coatings were also investigated. The results showed that the volume resistivity of the PA/CB films was decreased with the increasing of CB content and the electrical percolation threshold was about 2.0 wt%. An interesting result could be observed that the rheological threshold value was close to electrical percolation threshold. In addition, the tensile properties were improved with the addition of CB nanoparticles. POLYM. COMPOS. 37:1078–1084, 2016. © 2014 Society of Plastics Engineers