Temperature effect on the electrical resistivity of metal/polymer composites

In this paper the effect of temperature and filler content ϕ on electrical resistivity of styrene‐acrylonitrile polymer filled with iron or aluminium powders has been investigated. The resistivity of such composites decreases suddenly by several orders of magnitude at a critical volume concentration ϕ c , which depends on the size distribution of particles and on thermal history. For filler content lower than ϕ c , the resistivity decreases with increasing temperature, whereas for ϕ > ϕ c there is a sudden increase in resistivity at temperatures near the glass transition temperature of the polymeric matrix. This effect is more pronounced than the previously reported data on other composite systems.