  Conductive organic polymers can be formulated with polymers that incorporate
fine dispersed metallic particles.
  In this work, we present a general model for ferrogels which are chemically
cross-linked polymer networks swollen with a ferrofluid. Our aim is to study
the effect of the shape and/or material (conductivity) anisotropy on the
effective electrical conductivity of the ferrogel in the presence of an
external magnetic field. Our theory can reproduce the known results, and
provides a link between the particle property and orientation distribution and
the effective electrical conductivity. To this end, we find that material
(conductivity) anisotropies are more important to yield a high effective
electrical conductivity than shape anisotropies, while magnetic fields can
offer a correction.
