Carboxymethylcellulose/polyaniline blends. Synthesis and properties

Abstract

Polyaniline (PANI) as one of the conducting polymers focuses intensive research on both scientific and practical field. There are quite a lot of known hybrid materials of PANI and other polymer systems with various synthetic polymers, which results in blends with various properties. The presented research covers the blends of polyaniline with semisynthetic (carboxymethyl) cellulose (CMC). The system could lead to a new antielectrostatic material with interesting properties and seems to be applicable as an additive for packaging in both food and non-food industry. The final material was obtained using both protonated (HCl) and deprotonated form of polyaniline in its semi-oxidized form of leucoemeraldine. Blending consisted in obtaining of thin layer by slow evaporation of the solvent from a mixture of PANI and CMC. For the main investigation atomic force microscopy (AFM) in non-contact mode was used, which gave the topological information about the surface and also some structural information about the material. The described process seems to be very interesting as a route for obtaining a new hybrid natural/synthetic material with very interesting properties and a potential for application.