Preparation and Electrorheological Characteristics of Poly(p-phenylene)-Based Suspensions

Poly( p -phenylene) (PPP) particles were synthesized from a bulk polymerization of benzene and then doped with FeCl 3 in aqueous solution to control their electrical conductivity for their electrorheological (ER) application. Various concentrations of the aqueous FeCl 3 were implemented to investigate the effect of doping degree on ER performance, and the yield stress of an ER fluid, which is a typical characteristic of a Bingham fluid, was found to be related to both the applied electric field strength and the doping degree. A universal scaling function was introduced to collapse all of the data. From dynamic experiments, it was also found that the semiconducting PPP-based ER fluids exhibit characteristics of a viscoelastic solid, which increases with electric field strength and doping degree.