Highly conductive polyaniline copolymers with dual-functional hydrophilic dioxyethylene side chains

We investigated new highly conductive polyaniline copolymers bearing a small amount of dual-functional hydrophilic dioxyethylene side chains, which can act as a stabilizer in a heterogeneous dispersion medium in polymerization and a reactive dispersant in polar solvents. Compared to the unsubstituted polyaniline, new polyaniline copolymers maintained their high electrical conductivity of 485 S/cm with camphorsulfonic acid dopant in m-cresol. Moreover, in the alcoholic butoxyethanol solvent with a dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid dopant, new polyaniline copolymers showed enhanced dispersion abilities with very small particle sizes of <10 nm and exhibited a high electrical conductivity of 13 S/cm, which is significantly higher than polyanilines in an organic aliphatic alcoholic solvent (10−6∼1 S/cm). Therefore, new polyaniline copolymers are very interesting materials for electronic applications.

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