Abstract The use of Polyaniline (PAni) as conductive filler in several kinds of non-conductive polymers, such as elastomers, has been extensively studied in the production of easily processable semiconductors. This work focuses on the use of a PAni/clay nanocomposite (PCN) – instead of pristine PAni – as conductive filler of styrene-butadiene rubber (SEBS) to produce a PCN/SEBS semiconducting elastomer. In order to accomplish this, a novel solvent-free and low-temperature press-processing technique was proposed and applied. It was also compared to the traditional rubber mechanical processing method. The preparation of PCN/SEBS was conducted by following a two-stage procedure: Pain in situ synthesis and mechanical mixing. PCN/SEBS was characterized by Raman spectroscopy, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), the electrical properties were measured by means of the two-probe technique and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). It was found that the traditional processing method led to a highly insulating material, while the proposed procedure results in semiconducting composites, showing electrical conductivity values up to 10−7 S cm−1. From the mechanical standpoint, this novel treatment results in composites with lower stiffness at low temperatures and similar elastic behavior at the transition region when compared to the material produced by the typical mixing chamber procedure. Although this method still needs to be improved since these materials show less homogeneity than their counterparts and they crumble at ∼100 °C, this work sets the foundation for an alternative processing method to obtain PAni-based semiconducting elastomers.

中文翻译：

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基于聚苯胺/粘土纳米复合材料和通过替代加工技术获得的 SEBS 的半导体弹性体

摘要 聚苯胺 (PAni) 在多种非导电聚合物（如弹性体）中用作导电填料已在易于加工的半导体生产中得到广泛研究。这项工作的重点是使用 PAni/粘土纳米复合材料 (PCN)——而不是原始的 PAni——作为丁苯橡胶 (SEBS) 的导电填料来生产 PCN/SEBS 半导体弹性体。为了实现这一点，提出并应用了一种新型的无溶剂低温压加工技术。它还与传统的橡胶机械加工方法进行了比较。PCN/SEBS 的制备通过以下两个阶段的程序进行：原位合成和机械混合。PCN/SEBS 通过拉曼光谱、动态力学分析 (DMA) 和扫描电子显微镜 (SEM) 进行表征，通过双探针技术和电化学阻抗谱（EIS）测量电性能。结果发现，传统的加工方法产生了高度绝缘的材料，而所提出的程序产生了半导体复合材料，其电导率值高达 10-7 S cm-1。从机械的角度来看，与典型的混合室程序生产的材料相比，这种新颖的处理方法使复合材料在低温下具有较低的刚度，并且在过渡区域具有相似的弹性行为。尽管这种方法仍需要改进，因为这些材料的均质性不如同类材料，而且它们在 100 °C 时会碎裂，但这项工作为获得 PAni 基半导体弹性体的替代加工方法奠定了基础。