Deprotonation, Raman dispersion and thermal behavior of polyaniline–montmorillonite nanocomposites

• It was possible to deprotonated the intercalated PANI and its Raman dispersion profile reveals that the electronic structure is similar to pernigraniline units.
• The presence of new segments in intercalated PANI (named m-JGB units) is observed in all PANI chains (including the oligomers).
• In situ Raman and N K XANES data shows the degradation of m-JGB units and formation of Oxazine-like structures during heating in air of the intercalated PANI.

In this work, for the first time, the deprotonation, soxhlet extraction, and thermal behavior of intercalated polyaniline (PANI) into Montmorillonite (MMT) clay layers were investigated by resonance Raman, X-ray absorption near nitrogen edge spectroscopy (N K XANES), High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), and DFT calculations. The presence of new segments in intercalated PANI (named m-JGB units) is observed in all PANI chains (including the oligomers). The heating behavior monitored by in situ resonance Raman and N K XANES data shows the degradation of m-JGB units and formation of Oxazine-like structures during heating in air of the intercalated PANI. The Raman data indicates lower formation of Oxazine-like rings in intercalated PANI compared to the free one. It shows that clay act as a thermal barrier and precludes the thermal decomposition of PANI.

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