Fabrication of conductive polyaniline nanomaterials based on redispersed cellulose nanofibrils

Abstract

Dewatering or drying of diluted cellulose nanofibril suspensions is an effective way for reducing the costs of transportation and storage. In this study, poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) was introduced into a redispersing system of concentrated CNFs, and the obtained redispersed CNFs were used for fabricating CNF/PANI (polyaniline) nanomaterials by in situ polymerization method. The results showed that mechanical grinding with grinding gap of − 20 μm was an effective way to redisperse the concentrated CNFs, especially when the PVP was added in the redispersing process. The conductivity of the redispersed CNF/PANI film reached 1.08 S/cm and the specific capacitance reached 118.3 F/g (at 0.3 A/g), when the concentrated CNFs were redispersed with 5% PVP. During the polymerization process, PVP facilitated the PANI coating on the CNFs uniformly as steric stabilizer. This study provided a basis for the application of redispersed CNFs in conductive nanomaterials area.