Effect of temperature on the electrochemical synthesis and properties of polyaniline films

Abstract

Abstract The effect of temperature on the electrochemical oxidative polymerization of aniline and on the electrochemical properties of the resulting polyaniline (PANI) film was studied. The electrochemical deposition of PANI has been carried out on platinum at different temperatures. Three different films (PANI-25, PANI-40 and PANI-60) have been prepared at 25, 40 and 60 °C by electrochemical polymerization and characterized by cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Increasing the synthesis temperature leads to an increase of the polyaniline films thickness from 0.4 to 0.9 μm and, respectively, 1.1 μm, associated with an increase of the films capacitances from 3 × 10−2 F cm−2 to 7 × 10−2 F cm−2 and 10 × 10−2 F cm−2. The impedance measurements showed that only PANI-25 and PANI-40 exist in the conductive state over a large potential window, while PANI-60 has an intermediate behavior at low and high electrode potentials.