Conducting polyaniline blends and composites

ollowing the successful synthesis of conducting polyacetylene in 1977 by Shirakawa et al.,[1] electrically conducting polymers have generated tremendous interest due to their potential applications in batteries, electrochromic display devices, sensors etc. Electrically conducting organic polymers are a novel class of ‘synthetic metals' that combine the chemical and mechanical properties of polymers with the electronic properties of metals and semiconductors. These polymers become conductive upon partial oxidation or reduction, a process commonly referred to as doping. It has been demonstrated that the electrical properties of conductive polymers can be reversibly changed over the full range from an insulator to a metallic conductor. These novel polymers are under intensive research and development world wide both in the academic world and in the chemical and electronics industries. Their use as new materials in industrial and consumer products could open up entirely new fields for polymeric materials. Until recently, however, a major drawback of existing conductive polymers has been their modest environmental stability and/or intractability, which has made their conventional processing into useful end-products difficult