Tuning the morphologies of conducting polyanilines using sulfonic acid-containing Gemini surfactants with different spacer lengths

A novel method was used to tune the morphologies and properties of conducting polyanilines. In the first time, sulfonic acid-containing Gemini surfactant 9BA-m-9BA (that is 6,6′-(alkyl-1,m-diylbis(oxy))bis(3-nonylbenzenesulfonic acid) with different alkyl spacer length m = 2, 3, 4, 6, respectively) was used in the preparation of conducting polyanilines at 0 °C in reverse emulsion system of ethyl acetate/water with the volume ratio of 10:1. Simply increasing the spacer length of 9BA-m-9BA from m = 2 and 3 to m = 4 and 6, the morphologies of resultant polyanilines were changed obviously from granular to fiber-like forms, while the intrinsic viscosity of resultant polyanilines increased dramatically from 49.3 to 119.5 ml/g but conductivity decreased from 1.0 to 0.1 S/cm.