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Percolation Threshold of the Thermal, Electrical and Optical Properties of Carbonyl-Iron Microcomposites

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Abstract

Composites made up of microparticles embedded in a polymeric matrix have attracted increasing attention due to the possibility of tailoring their physical properties by adding the adequate quantity of fillers. As the concentration of these fillers increases, their connectivity changes drastically at a given threshold and therefore the electrical, thermal and optical properties of these composites are expected to exhibit a percolation effect. In this work, the thermal and electrical conductivities along with the emissivity of composites composed of carbonyl-iron microparticles randomly distributed in a polyester resin matrix are measured, for volume fractions ranging from 0 to 0.55. It is shown that both the thermal and electrical conductivities increase with the particles’ concentration, such that their percolation threshold appears at volume fractions of 0.46 and 0.38, respectively. The emissivity, on the other hand, decreases as the fillers’ concentration increases, such that it exhibits a substantial decay at a volume fraction of 0.41. The percolation threshold of the emissivity is thus higher than that of the thermal conductivity, but lower than the electrical conductivity one. This dispersion on the percolation concentration is justified by the different physical mechanisms required to activate the electrical, thermal, and optical responses of the considered composites. The obtained results thus show that the percolation phenomenon can efficiently be used to enhance or reduce the physical properties of particulate composites.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by projects SRE-AMEXCID-2016-1-278320 and Cinvestav Scientific Research and Technological Development Fund No. 98. F. C-A acknowledges the postdoctoral scholarship obtained from the project SEP-CB-2015-01-251882. N.W. P-M acknowledges support from the Adolf Martens fellowship at BAM Berlin. The FESEM analyzes were carried out by the M.C. Dora Huerta Quintanilla at the National Laboratory of Nano and Biomaterials, Cinvestav-IPN; financed by the projects FOMIX-Yucatán 2008-108160, CONACYT LAB-2009-01-123913, 292692, 294643, 188345 and 204822. The authors are grateful to J. Bante-Guerra for his technical assistance.

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  1. Institut Pprime, CNRS, Université de Poitiers, ISAE-ENSMA, F-86962, Futuroscope Chasseneuil, Poitiers, France

    I. Y. Forero-Sandoval & J. Ordonez-Miranda

  2. Applied Physics Department, CINVESTAV-IPN Mérida, Yucatán, C.P. 97310, Mérida, México

    I. Y. Forero-Sandoval, F. Cervantes-Alvarez, J. A. Ramirez-Rincon, J. D. Macias & J. J. Alvarado-Gil

  3. Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) 12200, Berlin, Germany, 12200, Berlin, Germany

    N. W. Pech-May

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  1. I. Y. Forero-Sandoval
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Forero-Sandoval, I.Y., Cervantes-Alvarez, F., Ramirez-Rincon, J.A. et al. Percolation Threshold of the Thermal, Electrical and Optical Properties of Carbonyl-Iron Microcomposites. Appl Compos Mater 28, 447–463 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10443-021-09869-z

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