Electrostatic fabrication of ultrafine conducting fibers: polyaniline/polyethylene oxide blends

✍ Scribed by Ian D Norris; Manal M Shaker; Frank K Ko; Alan G MacDiarmid

• Book ID: 117537164
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 392 KB
• Volume: 114
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0379-6779
• DOI: 10.1016/s0379-6779(00)00217-4

✦ Synopsis

Ultrafine fibers of polyaniline doped with camphorsulfonic acid PAn.HCSA blended with polyethylene oxide PEO were prepared Ž . by a non-mechanical, electrostatic spinning ''electrospinning'' technique. The morphology and fiber diameter of electrospun polyaniline blend fibers revealed that both the PEO and the PAn.HCSArPEO blend fibers had a diameter ranging between 950 nm and 2.1 mm, with a generally uniform thickness along the fiber. The UV-visible spectra of these electrospun fibers were similar to those for cast films produced from the same solutions. As expected, the conductivity of the non-woven fiber mat, as measured by the four-point probe method, was slightly lower than that of a cast film, due to the high porosity of the non-woven mat. The rate for the vapor phase de-dopingrre-doping of the electrospun fibers is at least one order of magnitude faster than for cast films, stressing the enormous effect an increase in the surface-to-volume ratio, accomplished by electrospinning the material into fibers, can have on the selected chemical properties of polyaniline blends.