Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

Graphene is a two-dimensional monolayer of carbon atoms organized in a hexagonal lattice. NanoXplore hasx000D
expertise on graphene production at a low cost, large volume and highly scalable. However, NanoXplore needsx000D
more information of the conductivity of its own graphene powders and baseline carbon black as a guide tox000D
design coating formulations. The new intended applications of graphene-based coating are electrostaticx000D
discharge for antenna, of great commercial potential. NanoXplore has an important line of activity in graphenex000D
and needs more investigations on several aspects including: coating materials and methods, durability,x000D
conductivity. The general objective of this proposal is to measure the conductive of graphene powders (versusx000D
other commonly used conductive additives) and its composites (coating and polymer blends) to betterx000D
understand how to target coating formulation. The specific objectives are the following: 1) benchmark thex000D
conductivity of the graphene and carbon black powders; 2) preparation and optimization conductivex000D
graphene/polymer coating to dissipate charges from antennae; 3) investigation of the conductivity ofx000D
immiscible polymer blends (semicrystalline and amorphous polymers). To achieve the objective 1, a protocolx000D
was recently developed at ETS to measure the electrical conductivity of solid powders using a high impactx000D
polymeric sample container and a 4-wire multimeter. Powder compaction is controlled with a universalx000D
mechanical testing machine. To achieve the objective 2, epoxy and polyester coatings are prepared and thex000D
graphene content is optimized via the conductivity measurement. In the objective 3, we propose a novelx000D
method to prepare ultra-low percolation threshold conductive polymer by controlling the morphology of thex000D
blends and the interface. The tangible applications of this research are ultralow percolation thresholdx000D
conductive polymers, high performance polymer blends and antenna electrostatic discharge materials.