Chemical synthesis and characterization of highly soluble conducting polyaniline in mixtures of common solvents

Abstract

This work presents the synthesis and characterization of soluble and conducting polyaniline–poly(itaconic acid) PANI–PIA according to a chemical polymerization route. This polymerization pathway leads to the formation of doped polyaniline salts, which are highly soluble in a number of mixtures between organic common polar solvents and water, the solubility reaches 4 mg mL-1. The effect of synthesis parameters, such as doping level, on the conductivity was investigated and a study of the solubility and other properties of the resulting PANI salts were also undertaken. The maximum of conductivity was found equal to 2.48×10-4 S cm-1 for fully protonated PANI-EB. In addition, the synthesized materials were characterized by various methods, i.e., viscosity measurements, XRD analysis and FTIR and UV–Vis spectroscopy. Finally, TGA was performed to obtain some information concerning the thermal behaviour of the materials.