Controlled growth of poly (N-methylaniline): From nanowires to microspheres

Through lamellar inorganic/organic mesostructures as templates, we successfully obtained the morphology changes of poly (N-methylaniline) (PNMA) from one-dimensional (1D) nanowires to three-dimensional (3D) microspheres only by adjusting the concentration of N-methylaniline (NMA) monomer in the presence of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB). The diameter of PNMA nanowires could be changed from 70–80 nm to 40–60 nm by adjusting the concentration of monomer (from 0.024 M to 0.012 M). On the other hand, PNMA microspheres with the diameter ranged from 200 nm to 1 μm were obtained when the concentration of monomer was below 0.006 M. The influence of the concentration of HCl to the morphology of PNMA was investigated. The mechanism of the formation for nanowires and microspheres was also discussed.