POLYANILINE SPINNING SOLUTIONS AND FIBERS

Polyaniline (emeraldine base form), in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone (NMP) at a fiber-spinnable concentration, gels so readily at room temperature that the solutions cannot be spun through spinneret orifices. Adding certain amines to the NMP solution or using certain amines as solvents provides a stable, spinnable solution. Continuous dry-jet wet spinning can be carried out with a 1,4-diaminocyclohexane/polyaniline solution. As-spun fiber is crystalline and can be oriented at high temperatures, e.g., 215-degrees-C. The drawn fibers have an average tenacity of 3.9 g/denier (gpd) (400 MPa), about five times the tenacity of the as-spun fiber. The highest electrical conductivities obtained with drawn fibers doped with aqueous H2SO4 and HCl were 320.5 and 157.8 S/cm, respectively. The tensile strength of the HCl-doped drawn fiber was reduced to 1.4 gpd.