Structures and properties of the soluble polyanilines, N-alkylated emeraldine bases

Gue Wuu Hwang, Kuan Ying Wu, Mu Yi Hua, Hsun Tsing Lee, Show An Chen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Article peer-review

72 Scopus citations

Abstract

The N-alkylated emeraldine bases (N-butyl, N-hexyl, N-octyl, N-decyl, N-dodecyl, and N-hexadecyl) are synthesized by incorporation of flexible alkyl chains onto the polyaniline (PAn) through an N-alkylation method with the emeraldine base. The solubility of PAn in common organic solvents is improved remarkably with the alkylation and the oxidation level is maintained at 40-50 mol% (close to that of the original emeraldine base, 50%) allowing for an adequate acid doping. When carbon number of the alkyl side chain is six or more, the polymers can be dissolved in common organic solvents (such as tetrahydrofuran, dichloromethane, and chloroform) even in the presence of a protonic organic acid as dopant, such as dodecylbenzene sulfonic acid (DDBSA) and camphor sulfonic acid (CSA), and free-standing films can be obtained by casting from the solutions. When the carbon number is 12, the polymer film is flexible. DDBSA-doped N-alkylated emeraldine salt films cast from polymer solutions in dichloromethane in the presence of the acid dopant have maximum conductivities in the range 10-2-10-4S/cm, being two to three orders of magnitude higher than those of the reported HClO4-doped poly(N-alkylaniline)s.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)39-46
Number of pages8
JournalSynthetic Metals
Volume92
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 15 01 1998
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Alkylation
  • Polyaniline and derivatives

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