Polyaniline Conducting Electroactive Polymers Thermal and Environmental Stability Studies

Reza Ansari,M B Keivani

doi:10.1155/2006/395391

Abstract

In the current studies, polyaniline (PANi) was prepared both chemical and electrochemically in the presence of different bronsted acids from aqueous solutions. The effect of thermal treatment on electrical conductivity, and thermal stability of the PANi conducting polymers were investigated using 4-point probe and TGA techniques respectively. It was found that polymer prepared by CV method is more thermally stable than those prepared by the other electrochemical techniques. In this paper we have also reviewed some fundamental information about synthesis, general properties, diverse applications, thermal and environmental stability of polyaniline conducting polymers.

Highlights

Thermal studies of PANi conducting polymers are important when one considers the use of elevated temperatures to process PANi and its blends into technologically useful forms
Polyaniline can be synthesised by the oxidative polymerisation of aniline in aqueous acidic media using a variety of oxidising agents such as (NH)4S2O8, KIO3 and K2Cr2O7
For large scale production the chemical method is more convenient because the scale of products in electrochemical synthesis depends on the size of electrode[11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18]

Summary

Introduction

Thermal studies of PANi conducting polymers are important when one considers the use of elevated temperatures to process PANi and its blends into technologically useful forms. It has been reported[33,34,35,36,37] that the irreversible conductivity decay of thermally treated PANi at temperatures below the thermal decomposition has been attributed to changes in morphology, crosslinking, possible structural rearrangements or other chemical reactions such as chemical interactions between dopant or solvent with the polymer, and irreversible conversion of ionic chlorine to covalent chlorine.

Results

Conclusion