Thermally responsive behaviour of the electrical resistance of electrospun P(NIPAm-co-NMA)/Ag composite nanofibers

Thermally responsive copolymer P(NIPAm-co-NMA) was prepared via a radical copolymerization and spun into nanofibers using electrospinning. After thermal crosslinking, the electrospun fibers were modified using KH590 and silver nanoparticles were introduced onto the fiber surface using a chemical plating method. The electrical resistance of the composite fibers containing 65.5% of silver at different temperatures was investigated and it was found that the resistance dropped by ∼60% as the temperature increased from 42 °C to 46 °C, which is consistent with the solubility transition of PNIPAm with the change of temperature as revealed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurement.