Self-assembly hierarchical micro/nanostructures of leaf-like polyaniline with 1D nanorods on 2D foliage surface

A novel 2D leaf-like polyaniline with special hierarchical micro/nanostructures, a length of about 3 μm, width of about 2.3 μm and thickness of about 120 nm, has been successfully synthesized in the presence of poly (acrylic acid-co-maleic acid) sodium salt (PAA/MA-SS), which is self-assembled from 2D square nanoplate and 1D nanorods. Its surface consists of highly cross-linked nanorods of approximately 100 nm in length and 30 nm in diameter. In order to investigate the formation mechanism of such 2D leaf-like polyaniline, some micro/nanostructures of polyaniline are synthesized at different polymerization times and the results show that the polyaniline microleaves originate from square nanoplates, which then self-assemble into leaf-like micro/nanostructures with nanorods on the surface.