COMPOSITE FILMS OF NYLON-6 POLYPYRROLE - THERMAL-BEHAVIOR, MECHANICAL-PROPERTIES AND ELECTRICAL-CONDUCTION

The thermal stability, mechanical properties and electrical conduction of nylon-6/polypyrrole composite films are reported, where nylon-6 films were predoped with various concentrations (0.5, 1.25, 2.5, 5 and 12.5% w/w) of copper chloride. The thermal behaviour of the composite films was studied using differential thermal analysis. The mechanical properties, namely the elongation at break and breaking strength, were measured. The results show that there is an improvement in the mechanical properties of the composite films for the nylon-6 film doped with up to 2.5% of copper chloride. The thermal stability of the composite films, however, does not show any improvement. The melting point and the degradation temperature both reduce as the concentration of copper chloride in nylon-6 is increased. The electrical conductivity (sigma) of these films was measured in vacuum as a function of temperature. The plots of log (sigma) versus temperature (T) show that the conduction mechanism is quite complicated.