Largely enhanced dielectric properties of poly(vinylidene fluoride) composites achieved by adding polypyrrole-decorated graphene oxide

In this work, polypyrrole (PPy) particles were first decorated on the surface of graphene oxide (GO), then the hybrid PPy@GO particles were incorporated into poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) to prepare the PVDF/PPy@GO composites. The microstructure characterizations showed that PPy particles were successfully decorated on the GO platelets and simultaneously, GO was partially reduced. With the aid of GO, PPy particles with much smaller diameters exhibited good dispersion in the PVDF/PPy@GO composites. Interestingly, different from the apparent nucleation effect of PPy particles on PVDF crystallization, the nucleation effect of PPy particles in the PVDF/PPy@GO composites was greatly reduced. The PVDF/PPy@GO composites exhibited higher electrical conductivity compared with the PVDF/PPy composites. More interestingly, compared with the PVDF/PPy composites, largely enhanced permittivity and slightly reduced dielectric loss were simultaneously achieved for the PVDF/PPy@GO composites. The mechanisms were related to the construction of multiple-interfacial polarization and the enhanced conductivity of the composites.