Electrical Properties of Self-Assembled Films of Polyaniline/Carbon Nanotubes Composites

Abstract

In this paper we present a study about the morphological and electrical properties of thin films of polyaniline and nanocomposites between polyaniline and carbon nanotubes at room atmosphere. From electric conduction analyses that explain the I–V experimental curves, we proposed an adapted model of fibrillar conduction path to calculate the electrical transport in PANI-CNT composites for different carbon nanotube mass fraction, in which the composites are treated as two conductivity domains whose transport is limited by tunneling through PANI barriers. This study demonstrates that by increase of the amount of carbon nanotubes in the nanocomposite films, the electrical conductivity can increase up to 5 orders of magnitude if compared to the pure polyaniline film, presenting a percolation limit of around 1% of carbon nanotubes by mass, and the calculations allow us to predict the length of PANI barrier for tunneling between 11 and 15 A of PANI as a function of the carbon nanotubes concentration in the films.