Electrically conducting suspensions formed by polyaniline

Polyaniline was synthesized with the chemical oxidation in the presence of poly(vinylpyrrolidone) as a surfactant for small-sizing polyaniline grains. It was dispersed in glycerin including sulfuric acid to yield electrically conducting solution. Voltammograms of the solution by the two-electrode measurement showed the proportionality of the Ohm's law in the cell voltage from −0.2 to 0.2 V. Voltammograms by the three-electrode measurement in the domain 0.0–1.5 V versus Ag|AgCl were different from the Ohmic law and Faradaic current of polyaniline, because of a mixture of both the contributions. The conductance did not vary with the volume fraction of polyaniline up to 20% and enhanced drastically until 35% with large fluctuation, and then increased proportionally with the volume fraction. This variation was explained in terms of the electric percolation with a threshold at the volume fraction of 20–35%. The mixture with over 45% fraction was actually solid. The suspension was applied to confirming the relation between the Ohmic current at a microelectrode and its diameter. The current showed a linear relation with the electrode diameter with a small intercept of the diameter, of which value corresponded to the size of polyaniline grains.