Thermally More Durable Electromechanical Films by POSS Nanomodification

The thermal stability of polypropylene (PP) based cellular electromechanical films was improved by compounding PP with thermally more durable cyclo olefin copolymer (COC) and polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) nanochemical. The cast films were biaxially oriented in laboratory scale and then expanded by a gas diffusion expansion method, which increased the pore size inside the cellular film structure and the thickness of the film. The cellular films were then electrostatically charged by a contact charging method and metallized by gold sputtering. The samples were aged at 85°C showing that the d33 signal decreased from the original value, but remained at high level; more than 120 pC/N even after two weeks of ageing.