Chemical oxidative polymerization, optical, electrochemical and kinetic studies of 8-amino-2-naphthol

Abstract

Here the polymerization of 8-amino-2-naphthol (AN) is reported without use of an additional external template, surfactants or functional dopants. For this, NaOCl and hydrochloride acid solution (1.0 M) were used as oxidant and reaction medium, respectively. The structure of oligomer was elucidated by FT-IR, UV–vis and 1H-NMR techniques. The number average molecular weight of oligomer was found to be 2200 Da with a polydispersity index of 1.4 by size exclusion chromatography. This oligomer exhibited a multicolor emission behavior as it was excited at different wavelenghts. Redox states were clarified by cyclic voltammetry (CV) technique and the relationship between anodic/cathodic peak currents vs. scan rates was determined. Thermal analysis and XRD data assigned that the resulting oligomer was in a semi-crystalline form. The activation energy related to the solid state decomposition was calculated from differential and integral non-isothermal methods and the lowest value using Kissinger procedures was determined to be 79.53 kJ/mol in N2 atmosphere.