Effect of Copper Selenide Modification on the Conductivity of PA6, PA66, PAN, and PES Fibers

Textile production has been steadily increasing for a few decades and, as a result, the amount of industrial textile waste is also increasing. This waste can be reused as raw material to produce new functional composites. Such materials can be used for special purposes with varying combinations of physical and chemical properties by using polymers modified with thin semiconductive or electrically conductive layers of binary inorganic compounds. In this paper, a study of the possibilities of altering the properties of synthetic fiber conductivity by modification with copper selenide is presented. A two-step adsorption/diffusion method was used for the copper selenide layer forming on the surface of the fibers. The treatment process was repeated cyclically. To evaluate the morphological properties of Cu(x)Se treated fibers, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersion X-ray (EDX) were performed. The study showed that the chosen modification method is more suitable for PA and PAN fibers. Dense layers of copper selenides were successfully formed on their surface, which significantly reduced their electrical resistance.