The role of a third component on the conductivity behavior of ternary epoxy/Ag conductive composites

摘要

Conductive adhesives, based on highly filled silver particles dispersed in a liquid epoxy resin, with an aliphatic amine [diethyltriamine (DETA)] as a curing agent, were investigated. A third component was added to the epoxy/Ag system to obtain composites of better conductivity, or similar conductivity but at lower silver contents, to modify the conductive adhesive properties, and also to reduce cost. Epoxy/Ag/carbon black (CB), epoxy/Ag/carbon fibrils (CF), epoxy/Ag/SiO_2 and epoxy/Ag/dispersant composites were thus studied. The effect of high curing temperature on the uniformity and resulting conductivity level was also studied. The studied systems, excluding the epoxy/Ag/CB composite, exhibited enhanced conductivities. The microstructure of most of the systems was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The micrographs produced have served to establish structure-property relations for better understanding of the observed phenomena.