Preparation and properties of waterborne-polyurethane coating materials containing conductive polyaniline

Abstract

We have prepared an aqueous dispersion of poly(aniline-dodecyl benzene sulfonic acid complex) (PANI-DC) that has an intrinsic viscosity ([η]) near 1.3 dL/g using aniline as a monomer, dodecyl benzene sulfonic acid (DBSA) as a dopant/emulsifier, and ammonium peroxodisulfate (APS) as an oxidant. We found that the electrical conductivity of a PANI-DC pellet was 0.7 S/cm. A waterborne-polyurethane (WBPU) dispersion, obtained from isophorone diisocyanate/polytetramethylene oxide glycol/dimethylol propionic acid/ethylene diamine/triethylene amine, was used as a matrix polymer. We prepared blend films of WBPU/PANI-DC with variable weight ratios (from 99/1 to 66/34) by solution blending/casting and investigated the effects that the PANI-DC content has on the mechanical and dynamic mechanical properties, hardness, electrical conductivity, and antistaticity of these films. The tensile strength, percentage of elongation, and hardness of WBPU/PANI-DC blend films all decreased markedly upon increasing the PANI-DC content. The antistatic half-life time (τ1/2) of pure WBPU film was about 110 s, but we found that those of WBPU/ultrasound-treated PANI-DC blend films decreased exponentially from 1.2 s to 0.1 s to almost 0 s upon increasing the PANI-DC content from 1 wt% to 15 wt% to > 15 wt%, respectively.