Research On Preparation And Properties Of Polyester Conductive Fiber With Electroless Plating Process

Conductive fiber is a functional fiber, which is endowed with good conductive propertiesof the fiber through specific means. It can eliminate static electricity by corona discharge andelectronic conduction. Recently, there are many ways in preparing conductive fibers. Theprocess of preparing conductive fiber by electroless plating doesn’t need complex equipment,and it is easy to operate. So, people are very concerned about this preparation method. In thispaper, Electroless plating process was adopted to prepare silver-coated conductive fiber. Andthe silver-coated fiber had similar conductive performance of silver. But in the process ofpreparing the silver-coated fiber, we found that the adhesive strength between the coating andthe fiber was low. And the weathering resistance of it was bad. The properties of thesilver-coated fiber were widely influenced. In the other side, conductive polymer polyanilinehas good conductive persistence and environmental stability. And the fiber which is coatedwith polyaniline can increase its surface roughness. Therefore, we developed a new methodwhich could combine the properties of polyaniline and silver for preparing conductive fiber.This method could improve the adhesive strength between the coating and the fiber, and madethe conductive fiber have a better conductive stability and weathering resistance. This methodwidens the application of conductive fiber.Electroless plating process was adopted to prepare silver-coated conductive fiber. Thisstudy made a systemic research on the influence of surface treatment conditions andelectroless silver plating conditions on the surface morphology and properties of the polyesterfiber. The suitable conditions were concluded. A continuous and dense silver layer wassuccessfully deposited on the surface of the polyester fiber. The conductivity of fibers wasimproved to2.6×10-2Ω·cm. But the interface of the coating and the fiber was physical adhesion,as the silver and the polyester fiber belonged to different materials. The quality of the coatingand the adhesive strength between the coating and the fiber needs to improve.In order to solve the problem of the silver-coated fiber, Electroless plating process wasadopted to prepare polyaniline coating as middle coating between silver coating and the fiber.The effects of the preparation conditions of the polyaniline films on the conductivity andlaundry resistance of the polyester fiber were studied. The suitable preparation conditions ofthe polyaniline films were concluded. Meanwhile, the influences of different conductivefibers on surface morphology and structure, thermal stability, mechanical properties, laundryresistance and the corrosion-resistant were evaluated. It was found that, compared with thesilver-coated conductive fiber, the silver layer on the surface of PANI-Ag duplex platingconductive fiber was denser and more uniform by the intermediate polyaniline layer of thepolyester fiber. In addition, the laundry resistance and the corrosion-resistant of fiber were significantly improved. The fiber retained the basic thermal stability and mechanicalproperties of the polyester fiber.Although the duplex plating conductive fiber had solved some of the problems of thesilver-coated fiber, but the weathering resistance of the silver-coated fiber was bad. The silvercoating was easy to oxidize in air. The conductive performance of the duplex platingconductive fiber was not stable. So these defects limited the industrialization and applicationof the conductive fiber. In order to combine the conductive stability of the polyaniline fiberand the excellent conductive performance of silver, one-step oxidation-reduction reaction wasadopted to prepare PANI/Ag composite conductive fiber. The results revealed that one-stepoxidation-reduction reaction could form polyaniline/Ag composite coating on the surface ofpolyester fiber. The composite conductive fiber has a higher degradation temperature andbetter conductive than polyaniline-coated fiber. And after50times washing, the conductive offiber was still better than that of polyaniline-coated fiber. On the other side, comparing withthe PANI-Ag duplex plating conductive fiber, the conductivity of the composite fiber wasworse, but the weathering resistance improved obviously. So the conductivity of the PANI/Agcomposite conductive fiber was stable.