Preparation and characterization of self-suspended tetraaniline with liquid crystal texture

•The tetraaniline doped with a novel long-chain protonic acid is flowable in the room temperature.•The self-suspended tetraaniline possesses a unique nematic liquid crystal texture without any solvent.•The self-suspended tetraaniline exhibits a high electrical conductivity, which reaches up to 0.1 S/m.

A simple and effective approach is used to obtain the amino-capped tetraniline, which can be doped by the nonylphenol polyoxyethylene ether sulfate to acquire self-suspended tetraaniline through a common dialysis. The synthetic self-suspended tetraaniline was flowable at or near room temperature. Furthermore, the tetraaniline fluid could directly present the liquid crystal property without any solvent. Also the self-suspended tetraaniline exhibited a high electrical conductivity, which reached up to 0.1 S/m.