Interfaced conducting polymers

•Polyaniline, polypyrrole and poly(p-phenylenediamine) have been synthesized.•They were used as templates for the coating with the same or another polymer.•FTIR and Raman spectroscopies indicate complete coating of the template polymer.•Modeling of dielectric and conductivity spectra of composites was performed.

The materials composed of pairs of conducting polymers, polyaniline, polypyrrole and non-conducting poly(p-phenylenediamine), were prepared by the coating of one polymer with the other. The course of polymerizations and morphology of the resulting composites have been recorded and the products were characterized by FTIR and Raman spectroscopies, DC and broad-band AC conductivity and permittivity measurements. The interfacial interaction between conducting polymers does not introduce any new effects concerning the conductivity. On the other hand, using composites where the conducting polymer is embedded in non-conducting polymer matrix allows for the control of structure at nanoscale and for the design of materials with new conductivity properties. This is illustrated by coating the conducting polymers with the poly(p-phenylenediamine) which has the conductivity by eight orders of magnitude lower, which yields composites with an intermediate conductivity, by three orders of magnitude lower than that of the conducting polymers.