p-toluene sulfonic acid doped polyaniline carbon nanotube composites: synthesis via different routes and modified properties

Abstract

Composites of polyaniline and carbon nanotube (CNT) were prepared by in-situ chemical polymerization method using various aniline concentrations in the initial polymerization solution with p-toluene sulfonic acid (PTS) as secondary dopant and mechanical mixing of the PANI and CNT using different weight ratios of PANI and CNTs. The structural characterizations of the composites were done by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and Ultra violet visible spectroscopy (UV-Visible). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to characterize the surface morphology of the composites. It was found that the composites prepared by in-situ chemical polymerization had smoother surface morphology in comparison to the composites obtained by mechanical mixing. The capacitive studies reveal that the in-situ composite has synergistic effect and the specific capacitance of the composite calculated from cyclic voltammogram (CV) was 385.1 F/g. Thermal studies indicate that the composites are stable as compared to PANI alone showing that the CNT contributes towards thermal stability in the PANI-CNT composites.