Ac and Dc conductivities of polyaniline/poly vinyl formal blend films

The synthesis and characterization of polyaniline (PANI)/poly vinyl formal (PVF) blend films were carried out in this work. Polyaniline base was doped using dodecylbenzene sulfonic acid (DBSA). These blend films were characterized by UV–Visible, FTIR spectra and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to investigate their optical, structural and morphological properties. It was found that the percolation threshold of these blends is 4.4 wt% of PANI. The dc and ac conductivities of these blend films have been measured at a temperature range from 300 to 100 K in the frequency range of 10 kHz to 1 MHz. The electrical conductivity of the blend films enhanced with the increase of polyaniline amount up to a value of 2.5 × 10−4 S cm−1 at 65 wt% of polyaniline. The dc conductivity of the PANI/PVF blend films follows the three-dimension variable range hopping. Temperature variation of frequency exponents in this blend suggests that ac conduction is attributed to be correlated barrier hopping.