Synthesis and characterization of poly(N-phenyl succinimide-thiophene) conducting polymer catalyzed by Maghnite-H+

N-phenyl succinimide-thiophene conjugated polymer (PTS), was synthesized from thiophene and synthetic N-phenyl succinimide. The polymerization was carried out in heterogeneous phase using proton exchanged silicate clay under suitable conditions. It was showed that the polymerization yield increase with increasing both the catalyst amount and the polymerization time. The reaction products were analyzed by 1H NMR, 13C NMR, FTIR, DSC, UV-visible spectrophotometry and ac-electrical measurements using the two-probe method. Both optical and electrical analysis revealed that the resulting co-polymer is a semiconducting material with an indirect optical band gap of 1.17 eV. The electrical conductivity increases as σac~f0.93, following a polaron-hopping mechanism, which is thermally activated and promoted with increasing the frequency. The activation energy decreases from 409 MeV (at 100 Hz) to 181 MeV (at 100 KHz). The dielectric losses become minimal at high frequencies with ε′~8.55 and ε″~0.54.