Effect of Crystallinity on Electrical Conduction in Polypropylene

The electrical conduction of 20 µm thick polypropylene films with different crystallinities has been studied at 72°C below 400 kV/cm. The field dependence of the current shows that the conduction mechanism in this polymer is ion hopping. The estimated ionic jump distance strongly depends on the polymer crystallinity, and it decreases from 100 Å to 45 Å as the crystallinity increases from 50.5% to 78%. Preheating of samples seriously affects the electrical conduction in polypropylene, so differences in conductivity, activation energy and jump distance obtained by different authors can be explained partly by differences in the thermal history of the samples used.