Effects of boron nitride nanoplates on the dielectric and mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes/silicone rubber composites

Abstract Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have aroused great attentions in silicone rubber (SR) composites due to the excellent electrical and mechanical properties. However, the distribution of CNTs is not ideal because of the agglomeration effect of nanomaterials. Incorporating different dimensional nanofillers may be a solution. In this work, two‐dimensional boron nitride (BN) was added to fabricate CNTs/BN/SR composites. The results showed that BN could benefit the dispersion of CNTs and improve the dielectric and mechanical behaviors of the composites. Large dielectric constant (5.35, 92% more than pure SR) with extremely low loss tangent (0.00108) was obtained in the SR composites incorporated with 2 wt% CNTs and 5 wt% BN. High tensile stress (836 kPa) and elongation at break (332%) were also achieved, with a low elastic modulus of 557 kPa. Besides, the CNTs/BN/SR composites had thermal stability up to 400°C. Thus, enhanced dielectric and mechanical properties were achieved in CNTs/BN/SR composites by incorporating different dimensional nanofillers, which have great potential applications in dielectric elastomer composites.