Synergistic Enhancement of the Percolation Threshold in Hybrid Polymeric Nanocomposites Based on Carbon Nanotubes and Graphite Nanoplatelets

Synergistic effect causes significant decreasing of the percolation threshold in the ternary polymer composites filled with carbon nanotubes (CNT) and graphite nanoplatelets (GNP) in comparison with binary ones. Enhancement of the percolation threshold strongly depends only on the relative aspect ratios of the filler particles due to the formation of the bridges between puddles of the different filler components. Conditions of both appearance and fading away of the synergistic effect are investigated depending on the relative morphology of CNT or GNP components of the filler. Different lateral sizes, aspect ratios, and volume concentrations of both CNT and GNP in the selected ternary composites were considered. Conditions of the effective substitution of GNP with CNT and vice versa in equal volume concentrations without enlarging of the percolation threshold were established. The results are obtained numerically using the Monte Carlo simulation of the percolation threshold of the different ternary composites.