The ways of connecting crystalline phases having tubular cavities like stringing beads: New conductive polymer composites prepared by the polymerization of aniline in highly oriented ε crystalline phase of syndiotactic polystyrene

Abstract

We prepared the syndiotactic polystyrene (SPS) films such that its ε crystalline phase and its channeling cavity were oriented to be parallel to the direction of the film thickness with a high regularity. Moreover, we introduced aniline molecules to these oriented cavities and successfully polymerized them to polyaniline (PANI). This is the mild and intelligent way of preparing polymer composites where the orientation and arrangements of the polymers are highly controlled. These SPS/PANI films showed the electrical conductivity to be ~0.05 S/cm and the maximum molecular weight of PANI to be 30 units of aniline. Interestingly, the film thickness was found to increase by 110–200%. This is because some ε crystalline phase is connected by the polymerization of aniline in the cavity, like sewing beads (some SPS ε crystalline phase) with a thread (polymerizing PANI). The paper examined the reaction temperature of aniline in SPS films, and other properties such as conductivity, molecular weight, and yield of PANI.