Effect of thermal treatment conditions on the properties of onion-like carbon based polymer composite

Dielectric properties of onion-like carbon (OLC) and polyurethane composite prepared using different procedures were investigated in the frequency range up to 1 MHz. We show that broadband dielectric spectroscopy is powerful tool to determine technological fingerprints in the studied materials. It is demonstrated that cured samples annealed at temperature close to the melting point (450 K) exhibit substantially higher dielectric permittivity and electrical conductivity in comparison with untreated samples. With the increase of temperature of an untreated sample, its dielectric permittivity, electric conductivity and critical frequency increase, while Maxwell–Wagner mean relaxation time and aggregate sizes of OLC decreases. Annealing of the composite at temperature close to the melting temperature produce sample with more homogeneous distribution of OLC. The temperature dependence of conductivity of the homogeneous sample is mainly caused by a weak positive temperature coefficient effect.