COUNTERION INDUCED PROCESSIBILITY OF CONDUCTING POLYANILINE AND OF CONDUCTING POLYBLENDS OF POLYANILINE IN BULK POLYMERS

By using a suitably functionalized protonic acid to protonate polyaniline, the counter ion can induce processibility of the resulting PANI complex. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of processing, in the conducting form, polyaniline and a variety of polyblends made from polyaniline. The resulting conducting polymer materials can be melt-processed or processed from solution to enable the fabrication of thin films, sheets, fibers, transparent conductive films, bulk parts, etc. These materials exhibit relatively high levels of electrical conductivity at low volume fractions of the polyaniline complex, while maintaining excellent mechanical properties, essentially equivalent to those of the host bulk polymer.