C56-20c: Highly Conductive Polymer Composites Enable Next-Generation Electronics Manufacturing

Traditional manufacturing of electronic components involves multi-step processes that are costly, capital intensive and environmentally unfriendly due to the chemical processes required. These are the serious challenges that industries from energy, defense, and automotive to space are currently facing. Conductive plastics are increasingly used in the electrical and electronics industry due to the design freedom, light weight, cost savings, and ease of processing. However, existing commercial-grade conductive polymer composites have electrical conductivity below 100 S/m, which limits their application to electrostatic dissipation and electromagnetic interference shielding at low radio frequency regimes. To address poor conductivity while taking advantage of the versatility of conductive plastics, the proposed DOE SBIR Phase I project aims to develop a suite of conductive polymer composites that have an electrical conductivity greater than 105 S/m, are thermally stable between -25 and 125 °C, and can be used to manufacture electronics and devices for communication and energy storage applications via 3D printing or injection molding. In other words, the core of the proposed research centers around how to retain the high conductivity of the resulting polymer composites in high-temperature environments, while keeping the overall material and manufacturing cost comparable to those of commercial-grade conductive composites. From a material science perspective, increasing the electrical conductivity of polymer composites to 105 S/m not only bridges the gap between existing conductive polymers and metals (>107 S/m), but more importantly, it could actually revolutionize the manufacturing of electronics for harsh environments or lightweight solutions. To achieve the above goals, Phase I efforts will mainly focus on improving the electrical conductivity and thermal stability of the functional polymer composites. Subsequently, injection molding and 3D printing will be tested to form protocols for the two manufacturing processes. Finally, injection molded and 3D printed specimens will be used to fully characterize the composite properties. We will leverage our own facility to conduct the proposed research, with additional minor assistance from local service providers in material processing and characterization. The development of targeted highly conductive polymer composites with electrical conductivity exceeding 105 S/m and thermal stability from -25 to 125 °C will benefit the $200B electronics market. The low-cost 3D printing of conductive polymers will allow design freedom and rapid proof-of-concept device prototyping. The high-volume injection molding used to mold traditional plastics will reduce production steps and lower the cost of bringing products to market. The ultimate goal beyond Phase I is to enable next-generation manufacturing of smaller, lighter, and more compact electrical and electronic devices at lower costs.