Effect of carbons’ structure and type on AC electrical properties of polymer composites: predicting the percolation threshold of permittivity through different models

The AC electrical properties of EVA- and NBR-based composites filled with different conductive fillers were investigated. Result shows several magnitudes of increment in AC electrical conductivity and dielectric permittivity after the addition of these conductive fillers, indicating that these materials can be used as supercapacitors. The magnitude of increment was varied according to polymer and filler types. Herein, we also have tested the applicability of different sigmoidal models to find out the percolation threshold value of permittivity for these binary polymer composite systems. It is observed that except sigmoidal–Boltzmann and sigmoidal–dose–response models, other sigmoidal models exhibit different values of percolation threshold when considered for any particular polymer composite system. The paper discusses the variation in results of percolation threshold with an emphasis on the advantages, disadvantages and limitations of these models. We also have applied the classical percolation theory to predict the percolation threshold of permittivity and compared with all the reported sigmoidal models. To judge the unanimous acceptability of these models, they tested vis-à-vis the permittivity results of various polymer composites reported in published literature. To comprehend, all the models except the sigmoidal–logistic-1 model were successfully applicable for predicting the percolation threshold of permittivity for polymer composites. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00396-023-05120-2.