Structure and electrical properties of carbon black Original Research Article

The incorporation of conductive particles into a polymer matrix modifies fundamentally the electrical conductivity of the composite. The importance of carbon black structure on other mechanical and rheological properties is also well documented. Besides common techniques, like DBP–absorption and CDBP–absorption, void-volume, determined by the measurement of the volume of a given quantity of carbon black under a given pressure, has been considered as a more absolute technique. The present work considers the void-volume technique under a broader angle. The evolution of the volume of a given carbon black weight under increasing pressure as well as the evolution of the electrical resistivity is recorded and analysed.