Oxidative Polymerization of Aniline: Characterization of New Polyaniline Products

摘要

Polyaniline is an attractive, intrinsically conductive polymer (ICP) because ofits stability, ease of synthesis, and processibility. Solubility is important because it makes ICPs unique among the materials such as graphite, carbon, or metal particles currently used to render resins electrically conductive. Previous work at Lockheed demonstrated that low molecular weight polyanilines doped with organic Lewis acids are more soluble in organic solvents than polyanilines doped with protonic acids. Since a wide range of molecular weights is produced during synthesis, only a small fraction of the product is useful. A method to control the molecular weight of the polyaniline product has been developed at Lockheed. Polyanilines within a narrow range of molecular weight had a combination of high solubility and high conductivity. Increasing molecular weight sharply decreases solubility, but only slightly increases conductivity. Surprisingly, decreasing molecular weight also decreases solubility.