Designing dual phase sensing materials from polyaniline filled styrene-isoprene-styrene composites

The demand for developing oil detectors is ever increasing since the cleanup and recovery from oil spill usually take long time. Here we propose oil sensors made of polyaniline (PANI) filled poly(styrene-isoprene-styrene) (SIS) block copolymer composite films with good uniformity and dispersion. The changes in resistivity of the samples in presence of both oil and water media reveal the good sensing ability of SIS-PANI films towards oil in water (dual phase). The morphology and chemical composition of the developed products are characterized by scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy. Swelling studies are performed to correlate the sensing response to the structural variations and based on it a mechanism is derived for the dual phase sensing. Contact angle measurements confirm the behavior further. The thermal properties and crystallinity of the composites are also addressed by the thermogravimetric and differential scanning calorimetric studies. The developed oil sensor material is able to withstand extreme temperature condition as well.