Preparation of novel flexible freestanding conducting polyaniline nanocomposite films using recent generation polycarboxylate ether

Novel flexible freestanding films of polyaniline-polycarboxylate ether nanocomposites (PAni-PCE NCs) were first synthesized effectively by a one-step in-situ polymerization of aniline in the presence of recent generation superplasticizer PCE as a polyanionic dopant cum film-forming agent. Various spectrochemical methods were used to characterize the molecular structures of the produced PAni-PCE NCs. In this work, PAni-PCE NCs show the lattice fringes structures by HR-TEM study for the first time. The electrical conductivity of flexible freestanding PAni-PCE nanocomposite films was measured using a four-probe method. The maximum conductivity was found in the range of 1.5 S cm-1 for PAni-PCE5 nanocomposite film. FT-IR results confirmed that PAni had been successfully doped or incorporated into the PCE matrix. The XRD pattern validated the crystalline nature of novel flexible freestanding PAni-PCE nanocomposite films. By increasing the concentration of PCE from 0.033 M to 0.165 M, the morphological transition from nanorods to nanosheets and nanoneedles was observed in the SEM image of the flexible freestanding PAni-PCE NCs film. From the TGA result, flexible freestanding PAni-PCE nanocomposite films showed higher thermal stability than pure PAni.