Investigations of some selected properties of electrochemically synthesized poly(N-ethyl aniline) films

The optical, morphological, thermal and redox properties of galvanostatically deposited poly(N-ethyl aniline) films are investigated. Effects of monomer concentration and substrate resistance on him properties have been reported. At higher concentration (0.8 and 1.0 M), the formation of a conducting phase with an absorbance maxima at similar to 840 nm is found to be more predominant. The substrate resistance also has a profound influence on the film properties in terms of rate and selectivity in deposition of the conducting phase. These results are supported by IR spectroscopy. The redox properties are affected by concentration of monomer while the substrate resistance contributes towards loss in reversibility of the species formed, especially at higher monomer concentration. Also, the morphology of the films exhibits improvement in quality with monomer concentration. The density of the fibres is affected by the decrease in substrate resistance. Thermal pattern also exhibits variation in terms of the number of steps involved in decomposition as well as the final decomposition temperature. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.