1、 Source of conductive plastics:
We usually think that the conductivity of plastic is very poor, so it is used to make the insulating jacket of wires. However, Australian researchers found that when an extremely thin metal film is covered on a plastic layer and mixed with the surface of polymer by ion beam, a plastic film with low price, high strength, good toughness and conductivity can be generated.
The team that achieved this result was led by two experts from the University of Queensland, Australia, Professor Paul Meredith and assistant professor Ben Powell, and an expert from the University of New South Wales, Professor Adam micolich. Their work has been published in ChemPhysChem magazine. The experiment on which the research is based was conducted by Andrew Stephenson, a former doctoral student at the University of Queensland. Ion beam technology is widely used in the field of microelectronics industry to test the conductivity of semiconductors, such as silicon wafers. However, the attempt to apply this technology to plastic film materials began in the 1980s and has made little progress until now. Professor Meredith said: "the work done by this group is simply to change the properties of plastic film materials with the help of ion beam technology, so that they have the function similar to metals. They can conduct electricity as the guide wire itself, and even become superconductors. When the temperature is low to a certain extent, the resistance becomes zero."
In order to show the potential application value of this material, the group used this material and made resistance thermometers with reference to industry standards. When compared with the same type of platinum resistance thermometer, the products made of new materials show similar or even superior performance. "The interesting thing about this material is that we retain almost all the advantages of polymer - mechanical flexibility, high strength and low cost, but at the same time, it has good conductivity, which is usually not the property of plastics." Professor mikolin said. "This material opens up a Xintiandi of plastic conductors."
Andrew Stephenson believes that the most exciting part of this technology is that the conductivity of this film can be accurately adjusted or set, which will have a very broad application prospect. "In fact, we can change the conductivity of this material by 10 orders of magnitude. In short, it's like we have 10 billion choices when making this material. In theory, we can make plastic that is completely non-conductive, or plastic that is as conductive as metal, and all the possibilities in between," he said This new material can be easily manufactured by using the equipment commonly used in the microelectronic industry, and compared with the traditional polymer semiconductor material, this new material has much higher antioxidant capacity exposed to oxygen. The researchers said that based on the above advantages, the film material obtained by treating polymer with ion beam will have broad application prospects. It is the perfect integration of modern and future technologies.
2、 Advantages of conductive plastics:
1. Most plastics have strong corrosion resistance and do not react with acid and alkali. 2. Low manufacturing cost of plastics.
3. Durable, waterproof and light.
4. Easy to be molded into different shapes.
5. It is a good insulator.
6. Plastics can be used to prepare fuel oil and fuel gas, which can reduce crude oil consumption.

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