Advances in processing routes for conductive polyaniline fibres

Fibres have been wet spun from a sulfonic acid doped polyaniline solution. The fibres are inherently electrically conductive with conductivities of 100 (+/-30) Scm(-1). Hot drawing of the fibres to similar to 600 % elongation leads to an approximately ten fold increase in the conductivity. Typical fibres have a Young's modulus of 0.2 GPa, and a tensile strength at break of 50 MPa. We report the annealing of fibres, raising the Young's modulus to 2 GPa and the tensile strength at break to 0.1 GPa.