Enhancement of dielectric permittivity by incorporating PDMS-PEG multiblock copolymers in silicone elastomers

Abstract

A silicone elastomer from PDMS-PEG multiblock copolymer has been prepared by use of silylation reactions for both copolymer preparation and crosslinking. The dielectric and mechanical properties of the silicone elastomers were carefully investigated, as well as the morphology of the elastomers was investigated by SEM. The developed silicone elastomers were too conductive to be utilized as dielectric elastomers but it was shown that when the above silicone elastomers were mixed with a commercial silicone elastomer, the resulting elastomer had very favourable properties for dielectric elastomers due to a significantly increased dielectric permittivity. The conductivity also remained low due to the resulting discontinuity in PEG within the silicone matrix.