Hopping conduction on conductive inks for wearable electronics

This work describes the preparation and electrical characterization of conducting carbon black on polyurethane and polyvinyl commercially available screen printing inks. Resistivity dependence with temperature for samples containing 3.0, 4.4, 5.0, 8.0 and 10.7 % filler mass concentration were investigated from 5 to 310 K. By using the differential activation energy method, it will be demonstrated that Mott type variable range hopping 3D conduction model is the predominant transport mechanism on the studied composites at low temperatures. Besides, the variable range hopping parameter and its subproducts were obtained: the mean hopping distance, the density of active centres and the energy associated with it. Variable range hopping 3D conduction is associated with an increase of the interchain connectivity. In the present work, this role is played by the carbon black. The carbon black/polyurethane and carbon black/polyvinyl composites are promising conducting coatings for using in wearable electronics as suggested by experimental results.