The role of a third component on the conductivity behavior of ternary epoxy/Ag conductive composites

Abstract Conductive adhesives, based on highly filled silver particles dispersed in a liquid epoxy resin, with an aliphatic amine [diethyltriamine (DETA)] as a curing agent, were investigated. A third component was added to the epoxy/Ag system to obtain composites of better conductivity, or similar conductivity but at lower silver contents, to modify the conductive adhesive properties, and also to reduce cost. Epoxy/Ag/carbon black (CB), epoxy/Ag/carbon fibrils (CF), epoxy/Ag/SiO ₂ and epoxy/Ag/dispersant composites were thus studied. The effect of high curing temperature on the uniformity and resulting conductivity level was also studied. The studied systems, excluding the epoxy/Ag/CB composite, exhibited enhanced conductivities. The microstructure of most of the systems was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The micrographs produced have served to establish structure‐property relations for better understanding of the observed phenomena.