Development of a concept for electrically conductive furniture panels

The wood industry, in particular, the interior and building sector are affected by the digital transformation. As a result, furniture is required to additionally inhere special functions like integrated illumination while being flexible in positioning and re-arrangements. The focus of this master thesis is the development of a concept for a conductive furniture panel including the cable-free conduction of electricity and illumination using LED. Three options were investigated. Conductive laminates (1) and conductive panels (2) were pro- duced using hot-pressing. Conductive polymers (3) were produced using a micro com- pounder and injection moulding. The material combinations of wood or polylactic acid with carbon fibres or resin were investigated. The samples were analysed for their elec- trical properties and polymer composites were furthermore investigated using light mi- croscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The results for the conductive laminates and panels were promising and reached resistivities of 4.8*10-3 Ωm. Highly flexible positioning of a LED was possible, using the panels in combination with the LED fixation pin. The conductive polymers were found conductive only at high carbon fibre content with moderate conductivities. Connecting two conductive furniture panels worked well using a simple butt joint for the bench-scale model. However, further research is still required to finalize the concept as the material showed inhomogeneous blending and poor processability for the conductive panels and laminates. Both provide a feasible solution for a conductive furniture panel. The conductive synthetic polymers are not an option at this state.