Congratulations to Ranjeetkumar Gupta, David Bucknall and David Flynn on the acceptance of their recent manuscript “Flexible Low-Density Polyethylene–BaTiO3 Nanoparticle Composites for Monitoring Leakage Current in High-Tension Equipment” for publication in Applied Nanomaterials. ACS Applied Nano Materials is an interdisciplinary journal publishing original research covering all aspects of engineering, chemistry, physics and biology relevant to applications of nanomaterials. The journal is devoted to reports of new and original experimental and theoretical research of an applied nature that integrate knowledge in the areas of materials, engineering, physics, bioscience, and chemistry into important applications of nanomaterials.
Innovation Across the Length Scales: From nanomaterial optimisation to real-world application, this publication is a great example of multidisciplinary research across Heriot-Watt University, Robert Gordon University and the Lakshmi Narain College of Technology and Science, (LNCTS Indore) in India.
The results within this open access, ACS Applied Nano Materials, paper demonstrates that these flexible polymer–nanoparticle composites could be used for strain-based sensors in high-tension applications, where polymer–nanoparticle composites prepared using a low-density polyethylene (LDPE) matrix with BaTiO3 nanoparticle compositions of 6, 9, 12, and 15 wt % have shown insulating behavior and are evaluated for their applicability as flexible strain sensors. With increasing percentage of the nanoparticles, the LDPE crystallinity decreased from 38.11 to 33.79% and the maximum electrical displacement response was seen to increase from 2.727 × 10–4 to 4.802 × 10–4 C/cm2. The maximum current, remnant current, and coercive field, all increased with the increasing nanoinclusion loading. Furthermore, the interaction radius values derived from the three-dimensional (3D) model of the nanoparticle dispersion state in polymer–nanoparticle composites were found to be correlated with its key properties. The interaction radius values from the simulated 3D model gave a clear basis for comparing the electrical properties of the samples with the effect of the nanoparticles’ functionalization on the dispersion state in the context of the increased NP loading and giving the values of 275, 290, 310, and 300 nm, respectively. The 12 wt % nanoparticulate-loaded sample demonstrates the best overall trade-off of key parameters studied herein. Overall, the results demonstrate that these flexible polymer–nanoparticle composites could be used for strain-based sensors in the high-tension applications.
ACS Applied Nanomaterials is an open access journal. This publication can be downloaded here.
