Preparation of novel flexible freestanding conducting polyaniline nanocomposite films using recent generation polycarboxylate ether

Abstract

Novel flexible freestanding films of polyaniline–polycarboxylate ether nanocomposites (PAni–PCE NCs) were first synthesized effectively by a one-step in-situ polymerization of aniline in the presence of recent generation superplasticizer PCE as a polyanionic dopant cum film-forming agent. Various spectrochemical methods were used to characterize the molecular structures of the produced PAni–PCE NCs. In this work, PAni–PCE NCs show the lattice fringes structures by HR–TEM study for the first time. The electrical conductivity of flexible freestanding PAni–PCE nanocomposite films was measured using a four-probe method. The maximum conductivity was found in the range of 1.5 S cm−1 for PAni–PCE5 nanocomposite film. FT–IR results confirmed that PAni had been successfully doped or incorporated into the PCE matrix. The XRD pattern validated the crystalline nature of novel flexible freestanding PAni–PCE nanocomposite films. By increasing the concentration of PCE from 0.033 M to 0.165 M, the morphological transition from nanorods to nanosheets and nanoneedles was observed in the SEM image of the flexible freestanding PAni–PCE NCs film. From the TGA result, flexible freestanding PAni–PCE nanocomposite films showed higher thermal stability than pure PAni.