Self-Assembled Nano-Needles of Polyaniline, Efficient Structures in Controlling Electrical Conductivity

Abstract

Polyaniline (PANI) is one of the most interesting conducting polymers with a wide and controllable conductivity range, synthesized easily via chemical or electrical route, stable chemically and environmentally, having high absorption in the visible range and high mobility of charge carriers. Under different conditions, PANI morphology can be controlled yielding to the creation of nano-tubes, belts, rods, fibers and particles.

In this study, the chemical oxidative polymerization which consists of mixing aniline hydrochloride (A-HCl) with ammonium peroxydisulfate (APS) was used to synthesize HCl doped PANI. Fixing the weight ratio A-HCl/APS defined by the IUPAC while varying their quantities leads to the formation of PANI nanoparticles with variable diameters. In addition, PANI nano-needles of 60 nm average diameter at the center are also obtained. Different methods are used to investigate of 1-D morphologies. The electrical conductivity of bulk PANI pellets is measured using the four-point probe technique. The absorption in the visible range of PANI particles and nano-needles is determined by UV-Vis spectroscopy. XRD analysis was performed to study the effect of PANI particle size and morphology on the crystallinity of the powder. Such structures could be used in hybrid solar cells for higher conversion efficiencies.