Experimental Studies on Conducting Polyaniline

Fatih      Dogan; Stephen      Barton; Homayoun      Hadavinia; Peter      Mason; Peter      J.S. Foot

Abstract

Polymers are normally used as insulators in many industrial applications due to their high resistivity but there are important developments where polymers can be used as conductors. Electrically conductive polymers find applications in electromagnetic shielding, antistatic coatings, organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), electrochemical sensors, rechargeable batteries and solar cells. However, the mechanical properties of these materials are not very favourable in comparison with their insulating counterparts and research to enhance their mechanical properties and ease of processability is very active. Many polymers can be produced with using similar chemical or electrochemical methods. Chemical oxidation of polymers is strongly focused in this paper. There are also other patents related to producing conducting polymer composition comprising a conducting polymer and some other polymer types. This paper will focus on only producing of conducting polymers and mostly on conducting polyaniline. After the patent research, there will be some experimental works which have been already reported previously by other researchers on this subject for making of high electrically conducting polymers, preferably conducting polyaniline.

Keywords: Conducting polyaniline, intrinsically conducting polymers, polyacetylene, polymers, organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), electrochemical sensors, antistatic coatings, electromagnetic shielding, rechargeable batteries, solar cells