Self-assembly of flower-like polyaniline-polyvinyl alcohol multidimensional architectures from 2D petals

Flower-like polyaniline-polyvinyl alcohol (PANI/PVA) multidimensional architectures assembled from 2D petals were successfully synthesized in the dilute solution of PVA by the oxidation polymerization. PANI/PVA flowers have a diameter of about 2.5 μm and consist of many interlaced sheet petals. Chemical structure and composition of polymerized PANI/PVA were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Ultraviolet and visible spectroscopy (UV-vis), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). In order to research the formation mechanism of the 3D flower-like PANI/PVA, their growth process was followed by measuring the morphological evolutions of products with the different polymerization times. The results showed that the flower-like PANI/PVA originated from sheet petals, which then self-assembled into flower-like microstructures. In addition, the effect of PVA concentration on the morphology of the 3D flower-like PANI/PVA was also investigated.