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Gold/ultra‐high molecular weight polyethylene nanocomposites for electrical energy storage: Enhanced recovery efficiency upon uniaxial deformation
Author(s) -
Drakopoulos Stavros X.,
Manika Georgia C.,
Nogales Aurora,
Kim Taeyong,
Robbins Andrew B.,
Claudio Gianfranco,
Minnich Austin J.,
Ezquerra Tiberio A.,
Psarras Georgios C.,
MartinFabiani Ignacio,
Ronca Sara
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of applied polymer science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.575
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-4628
pISSN - 0021-8995
DOI - 10.1002/app.51232
Subject(s) - materials science , crystallinity , composite material , ultra high molecular weight polyethylene , nanocomposite , polyethylene , electrical resistivity and conductivity , dielectric , energy storage , polymer , deformation (meteorology) , nanoparticle , nanotechnology , optoelectronics , electrical engineering , power (physics) , physics , quantum mechanics , engineering
Abstract The growing demand for renewable energy sources has prompted the development of dielectric materials with the ability to store and efficiently recover electrical energy. Here, we correlate the structure and thermal conductivity of uniaxially oriented disentangled ultra‐high molecular weight polyethylene (dis‐UHMWPE) composites reinforced with gold nanoparticles with their electrical properties and potential application as electrical energy storage devices. Stretching increases the orientation of the polymer chains and thus the crystallinity and reduces the aggregation of gold nanoparticles while the thermal conductivity enhances significantly along the orientation axis. The structural changes driven by stretching result in two competing effects; on the one hand, the crystallinity increase reduces the permittivity of the composites and increases the resistivity, while on the other hand the recovery efficiency of oriented materials excels that of unstretched samples by up to 6 times at 5 s. Therefore, our work shows the structure–property relationship in electrical energy storage materials.