Conductive Polymer

Castor oil is one of the most versatile plant oils. The various grades of the oil and its derivatives are currently used in over a dozen diverse industries. In future, with the rising environmental concerns and the need for bio-based products to replace synthetic feedstocks, castor oil and oil oleo chemicals have the potential to be used in many newer industries.

We proposed a simple yet robust film treatment method with methanol having only one hydroxyl group to enhance the conductivity of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) by four orders of magnitude. Different methods of film treatment: immersing PEDOT:PSS film in the methanol solution; dropping methanol on the film; and a combination of these are employed and the results are compared. The conductivity of PEDOT:PSS films was enhanced from 0.3 S cm À1 to 1362 S cm À1 after film treatment with methanol. Other alcohols like ethanol and propanol were also used to treat the PEDOT:PSS film and showed inferior conductivity enhancement compared to methanol. The conductivity enhancement was greatly affected by the hydrophilicity and dielectric constant of the alcohols used. The mechanism of conductivity enhancement was investigated through various characterization techniques including FTIR, XPS and AFM. Removal of the insulator PSS from the film, and morphology and conformational changes are the mechanisms for the conductivity enhancement. The treated films also showed high transmittance and low sheet resistance desirable for a standalone electrode. ITO-free polymer solar cells were fabricated using PEDOT:PSS electrodes treated with methanol and showed almost equal performance to ITO electrodes.

Present article is an attempt to develop a method to increase the conductivity of polyaniline (PANi) nanofibers. Nanofibers of MnO 2 that have been prepared by a chemical precipitation method were used as the seeds to facilitate the polymerization of aniline and thereby manufacturing of metal-PANi nanofibers. High conductivity and good electrochemical capacitor property was observed for these metal-PANi nanofiber composites against PANi nanofibers. SEM, FT-IR and UV-vis were utilized for characterization of the manufactured composites. The I-V characteristics of samples investigated by two-probe and their resistance were compared. The viability of the composites to be used as an electrode material for supercapacitor application was tested by electrochemical methods.

Developing stimulus-responsive biomaterials with easy-to-tailor properties is a highly desired goal of the 29 tissue engineering community. A novel type of electroactive biomaterial, the conductive polymer, 30 promises to become one such material. Conductive polymers are already used in fuel cells, computer 31 displays and microsurgical tools, and are now finding applications in the field of biomaterials. These 32 versatile polymers can be synthesised alone, as hydrogels, combined into composites or electrospun into 33 microfibres. They can be created to be biocompatible and biodegradable. Their physical properties can 34 easily be optimized for a specific application through binding biologically important molecules into 35 the polymer using one of the many available methods for their functionalization. Their conductive nature 36 allows cells or tissue cultured upon them to be stimulated, the polymers' own physical properties to be 37 influenced post-synthesis and the drugs bound in them released, through the application of an electrical 38 signal. It is thus little wonder that these polymers are becoming very important materials for biosensors, 39 neural implants, drug delivery devices and tissue engineering scaffolds. Focusing mainly on polypyrrole, 40 polyaniline and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene), we review conductive polymers from the perspective 41 of tissue engineering. The basic properties of conductive polymers, their chemical and electrochemical 42 synthesis, the phenomena underlying their conductivity and the ways to tailor their properties 43 (functionalization, composites, etc.) are discussed.

The preparation of polyaniline (PANI) microrod arrays in the presence of dodecylbenzene sulfonic acid (DBSAH), a structure-directing agent, and in the presence of periodic acid (H 5 IO 6) , an oxidant in aqua-acidic media, was investigated. DBSAH was performed to distinguish the roles of both surfactant and dopant. The method of preparation of DBSAH and H 5 IO 6 doped PANI (DBSAH-PANI) microrods in a reversed micelle had previously not been reported. The characterizations of the PANI microrods were determined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, (EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Based on the SEM results, we found that PANI microrods occur in the presence of DBSAH in the polymerization medium, while the XRD results showed that PANI-DBSA gave clearer crystallinity than PANI. At room temperature, the DC conductivities of pure PANI and PANI-DBSA were 9.5 × 10 −2 S/cm and 9.2 × 10 −2 S/cm-4 × 10 −2 S/cm, respectively, based on the molar ratio of DBSA. The experimental results suggested that it is possible to control both the electrical conductivities and the crystal structures of PANI microrods with DBSAH dopants' incorporation level.

Implantable neural microelectrodes that can record extracellular biopotentials from small, targeted groups of neurons are critical for neuroscience research and emerging clinical applications including brain-controlled prosthetic devices. The crucial material-dependent problem is developing microelectrodes that record neural activity from the same neurons for years with high fidelity and reliability. Here, we report the development of an integrated composite electrode consisting of a carbon-fibre core, a poly(p-xylylene)-based thin-film coating that acts as a dielectric barrier and that is functionalized to control intrinsic biological processes, and a poly(thiophene)-based recording pad. The resulting implants are an order of magnitude smaller than traditional recording electrodes, and more mechanically compliant with brain tissue. They were found to elicit much reduced chronic reactive tissue responses and enabled single-neuron recording in acute and early chronic experiments in rats. This technology, taking advantage of new composites, makes possible highly selective and stealthy neural interface devices towards realizing long-lasting implants.

Conducting textiles were prepared embedding polypyrrole in natural and man made cellulose-based fibres, such as cotton, viscose, cupro and lyocell, by means of in situ polymerisation. Chemical vapour phase deposition of polypyrrole is a suitable process for producing electro-conductive composites in two steps: (a) fabric impregnation with an aqueous solution of oxidant and dopant and subsequent drying; (b) exposition to pyrrole vapour and polymerisation.

An ammonia sensor is described in this work. The sensing membrane is a thin layer of oxidized polypyrrole (PPy) on a platinum substrate. This sensor is used as the working electrode in a conventional three-electrode system for amperometric measurement of ammonia in aqueous solutions in the potential range of + 0.2 to + 0.4 V (vs. Ag/AgCl). Contact with ammonia causes a current to flow through the electrode. This current is proportional to the concentration of free ammonia in the solution and ammonium ions do not contribute to the measured signal. The signal is due to reduction of PPy by ammonia with subsequent oxidation of PPy by the external voltage source. The sensor is able to detect ammonia reproducibly at the ,DM level. The main interference is the doping effect of small anions such as Cl -and NO,, also giving a response on PPy at the mM level. This anionic response can, to a certain degree. be reduced by covering the polymer surface with dodecyl sulfate. The sensor gradually loses its activity when exposed to ammonia concentrations greater than 1 mM. The sensor has been tested by the flow injection analysis technique.

In this paper we report a new strategy for obtaining conducting azopolymers having pendant azobenzene moieties via functionalization of polypyrrole by electrochemical reduction of 4-[(4 0-nitrophenyl)azo] benzenediazonium tetrafluoroborate (NABDBF 4 À). The functionalization of polypyrrole films with 4 0-nitroazobenzene (NAB) groups has been evaluated by cyclic voltammetry and by spectroscopic techniques such as XPS, Raman and UV-vis spectroscopy. Moreover, the third-order nonlinear optical response of NAB-functionalized polypyrrole has been investigated using the optical third-harmonic generation technique. All these investigations confirmed the presence at the polymeric films surface of the functional groups introduced by the electrochemical reduction of diazonium salt. The versatility of this methodology allows not only the functionalization of polypyrrole-type materials with chromophore groups, but can also be successfully applied to other conjugated polymer systems in order to create various photoresponsive materials. 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The effects of zeolite content, pore size and ion exchange capacity on electrical conductivity response to carbon monoxide (CO) of polyaniline/zeolite composites were investigated. Zeolite Y, 13X, and synthesized AlMCM41, all having the common cation Cu 2+ , were dry mixed with synthesized maleic acid (MA) doped polyaniline and compressed to form polyaniline (PANI)/zeolite pellet composites. The Y, 13X and AlMCM41 zeolite have the nominal pore sizes of 7, 10, 36Å, and the Cu 2+ exchange capacities of 0.161, 0.087, and 0.044 mol/g, respectively. With an addition of 13X zeolite to pristine polyaniline, the electrical conductivity sensitivity to CO/N 2 gas increases with zeolite content. For the effect of zeolite type, the highest electrical conductivity sensitivity is obtained with the 13X zeolite, followed by the Y zeolite, and the AlMCM41 zeolite, respectively. Poor sensitivity of zeolite AlMCM41 is probably due to its very large pore size and its lowest Cu 2+ exchange capacity. Y zeolite and 13X zeolite have comparable pore sizes but the latter has a greater pore free volume and a more favorable location distribution of the Cu 2+ ions within the pore. The temporal response time increases with the amount of zeolite in the composites but it is inversely related to the amount of ion exchange capacity.

Conducting polymer, polyaniline (PANI), has been studied as a novel electroactive and electrically conductive material for tissue engineering applications. The biocompatibility of the conductive polymer can be improved by (i) covalently grafting various adhesive peptides onto the surface of prefabricated conducting polymer films or into the polymer structures during the synthesis, (ii) co-electrospinning or blending with natural proteins to form conducting nanofibers or films, and (iii) preparing conducting polymers using biopolymers, such as collagen, as templates. In this paper, we mainly describe and review the approaches of covalently attaching oligopeptides to PANI and electrospinning PANI-gelatin blend nanofibers. The employment of such modified conducting polymers as substrates for enhanced cell attachment, proliferation and differentiation has been investigated with neuronal PC-12 cells and H9c2 cardiac myoblasts. For the electrospun PANIgelatin fibers, depending on the concentrations of PANI, H9c2 cells initially displayed different morphologies on the fibrous substrates, but after one week all cultures reached confluence of similar densities and morphologies. Furthermore, we observed, that conductive PANI, when maintained in an aqueous physiologic environment, retained a significant level of electrical conductivity for at least 100 h, even though this conductivity was decreasing over time. Preliminary data show that the application of micro-current stimulates the differentiation of PC-12 cells. All the results demonstrate the potential for using PANI as an electroactive polymer in the culture of excitable cells and open the possibility of using this material as an electroactive scaffold for cardiac and/or neuronal tissue engineering applications that require biocompatibility of conductive polymers.

The electroactivity of two poly-(phenothiazine), the poly-(Azure A) and the poly-(Methylene Blue), has been compared in this work. The spectroelectrochemical results prove clearly the existence of two electroactive moieties integrated in the polymeric lattice, the phenothiazine ring (detected by changes of absorbance at 590 and 685 nm) and the newly formed covalent links which fixes the monomers in the backbone of the polymer (detected by changes of absorbance at 460 and 875 nm). Differences in the electrochemical response of both polymers are due to differences in this covalent link. However in both polymers, the charge balance during electrochemical reactions takes place by the exchange of one anion species and one cation species during the double electronic transference in both types of electroactive centers. Electrochemical impedance analysis together with the spectroelectrochemical (cyclic voltammetry + Vis-Near IR spectroscopy) makes possible to throw light on the mechanistic model of the electrochemical reaction of these polymers taking into account the coupled electronic/ionic transports, the trapped polarons (pinning model), structural configurations and inner water molecules.

The compound 3-hydroxyphenylacetic acid (3-HPA) has been used as a monomer in the synthesis of polymeric films by electropolymerization; these films serve as supports for the immobilization of biomolecules in electrochemical biosensors. To assist in the elucidation of the mechanism of 3-HPA electropolymerization, a systematic quantum mechanical study was conducted. In addition to the monomer, all possible intermediates and the probable oligomers formed during the electropolymerization were investigated using a density functional theory (DFT) method combined with a previous conformational analysis performed with the aid of the RM1 semi-empirical method or a Monte Carlo conformational analysis with the force field OPLS-2005. From the data analysis combined with the experimental results, a mechanism was proposed for the main route of formation of the polymeric films. The mechanism involves the formation of polyethers from the coupling of phenoxide radicals and radicals based on the aromatic ring.

In this work, we present resistor-capacitor circuit (RC circuit) or simple RC low pass filter circuit was fabricated by using simple inkjet printing technique. A conductive polymer, Poly (3, 4ethylenedioxythiophene)/poly-styrene-sulfonic acid (PEDOT/PSS) was used as a resistive component and electrode material for the capacitor. Commercially available Ethyl-2-cyanoacrylate was applied as the dielectric of the capacitor. The device was inkjet printed by using a normal desktop printer CANON IP 4500. It was shown that the cutoff frequency of the device could be tuned to 10 kHz. The finding indicate the practical use of PEDOT/PSS RC low pass filter in flex sensor.

The conductive coating method is used for various industrial fields. For example, the sputtering process is used to coat the ITO layer in LCD or OLED panel manufacturing process and fabricate a base layer of substrate of an electric printing device. However, conventional coating processes (beam sputtering, spin coating etc.) have problems in the industrial manufacturing process. These processes have a very high cost and critical manufacturing environment as a vacuum process. Recently, many researchers have proposed various printing processes instead of conventional coating processes. We propose an ESD printing process in ITO coating layer and apply to fabricate a conductive coating film. Furthermore, the effect of the nozzle and also the applied voltage on different configurations of the nozzle head was also studied for better understanding of the electro static deposition process.

Crystalline, porous and fibril-like structure polyaniline film is electrodeposited on glassy carbon electrode from acidic solution. The electrochemical behaviour of polyaniline/glassy carbon modified electrode in [Bu 4 N][BF 4 ]-CH 3 CN solution is investigated using cyclic voltammetry technique. It shows a stable electroactive region which is related to the semiconducting state of polyaniline in nonaqueous medium. The electro-catalytic performance of the modified electrode toward Hydrogen Evolution Reaction (HER) from Et 3 NHCl/[Bu 4 N][BF 4 ]-CH 3 CN solution shows a positive shift in the direct proton reduction potential as well as a higher catalytic reduction current density compared to the unmodified electrode with a good stability of 73.7 % current retention after 25 repetitive cycles. The electrocatalytic activity of the modified electrode is correlated to its morphology.

Electrochemically deposited polypyrrole (PPy) films were functionalised with amine or carboxylic function. The functionalisation was done by grafting allylamine or acrylic acid (AAc) using UV light radical activation. The active groups of the surface were quantified by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) after chemical derivatisation with trifluoroethanol (TFE) or 4-trifluoromethylbenzaldehyde (TFBA), respectively. Grafting with AAc completely covered the PPy film introducing high levels of carboxylic function. In the case of allylamine grafting, a saturation point at low amine carbon level was achieved. Further characterisation of the surfaces was done by time of flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy (TOF-SIMS), atomic force microscope (AFM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). #

Poly(3-thiopheneacetic acid), P3TAA, was chemically synthesized via an oxidation polymerization and doped with perchloric acid. Composites were fabricated from P3TAA and zeolites, zeolites L (L), mordenite (MOR), and beta (BEA) through random dry mixing. The electrical conductivity response toward H 2 was investigated for the effects of zeolite contents, zeolite type, cation type, and cation concentration. Negative electrical conductivity response and sensitivity generally occur when exposed to H 2 relative to N 2 . A weaker interaction is suggested to occur between H 2 and the polaron or the bipolaron species relative to the interaction between N 2 and active sites of the doped P3TAA. For the effect of zeolite content, the composite with 20% (v/v) MOR has the highest electrical conductivity sensitivity value. The reduction of sensitivity values occurs with increasing MOR zeolite concentration from 20 to 50% (v/v); this arises from the diminishing active sites available for the interaction between H 2 and the polaron or the bipolaron species. For the composites with 20% (v/v) L, MOR and BEA, the electrical conductivity sensitivity increases with decreasing Al content because of a lesser interaction between H 2 and the zeolite, and consequently a greater interaction between H 2 and the active sites on the polymer chain. The higher electronegativity and smaller ionic radius of Li + loaded into the MOR zeolite framework causes the lowering of electrical conductivity sensitivity than the composites loaded with Na + and K + . For composites with zeolite L loaded with Na + at 0, 15, 20, 30 and 50 mole%, the electrical conductivity sensitivity increases with increasing Na + content up to 30 mole% and decreases beyond that.

Multibranched gold (Au) nanocomposite materials encapsulated by poly(o-phenylenediamine) (PoPD) (Au@PoPD) were synthesized in a Nafion polymer film through the electroless synthetic route. The micro-heterogeneous structured Nafion film acted as a reaction vessel and as the template for the formation of Au@PoPD nanocomposite materials leading to the formation of highly uniform distribution of high density of the polymer-gold nanocomposite material. The formation of Au@PoPD nanomaterials at the GP/Nf surface was scrutinized by recording in situ absorption spectra and was characterized. The formation of the (1 1 1) plane of gold was dominant at the Au@PoPD nanocomposite. The ratio of the benzenoid and quinoid units of the PoPD (ca. 1.65) observed for the Au@PoPD confirmed that the micro-heterogeneous structure of Nf film acted as a reaction vessel and as template for the formation of Au@PoPD nanocomposite material. Both PoPD and Au at the Au@PoPD nanocomposite showed electrochemical activities at the GC/Nf-Au@PoPD modified electrode. The electrocatalytic activity of the GC/Nf-Au@PoPD modified electrode was studied for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR).

Ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy was used to investigate the energy level alignment at interfaces between the organic semiconductor poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and poly(ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDT:PSS) electrodes. The thickness of P3HT was varied between sub-monolayer and multilayer (20 nm) coverage. The work function of PEDT:PSS decreased linearly from 4.90 to 4.35 eV as function of P3HT coverage up to a full monolayer, and remained constant for larger thickness. In contrast, the low binding energy onset of the P3HT valence band shifted abruptly by 0.15 eV towards higher binding energy between monolayer and multilayer. These results evidence the formation of an interface dipole confined to the intimate P3HT/PEDT:PSS contact, in full analogy to the already established model for small molecule/electrode interfaces. It is thus necessary to account for interface dipoles at polymer/electrode interfaces, because measurements on thick films may be compromised by additional band bending throughout the semiconductor polymer bulk.

High integrity solid-contact (SC) polymeric ion sensors have been produced by using spin casting and electropolymerization techniques in the preparation of the SC employing the conductive polymer, poly(3-octylthiophene) [POT]. The physical and chemical integrity of the POT SCs have been evaluated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Furthermore, the electrochemical stability of SC polymeric ion sensors has been investigated using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The results of this study demonstrate that electropolymerization and spin casting methods also comprising annealing of the synthesized SC film are capable of producing SCs that are relatively free of imperfections such as pores and pinholes. This leads to electrochemically stable and robust polymeric ion sensors where the SC/sensor interface is resistant to the formation of a detrimental water layer that normally gives rise to spurious ion fluxes and a degradation in the sensitivity and selectivity of the SC polymeric ion sensor.

Copolymers containing alternating fluorene and 1,10-phenanthroline units, prepared by Suzuki coupling, were found to be capable of binding with Eu3+ and Tb3+ ions in the presence of dibenzoylmethane (dbm) or acetylacetonate (acac) ligands. Photoluminescence studies of the Eu-containing polymer showed a measurable additional longerwavelength emission on complexation compared to the uncomplexed polymer.
Narrowlinewidth red emission from the metal-centred Eu f states (5D0→7F2)was only observed on raising the concentration of the solution or in the solid state. The lack of intra-chain energy transfer to the Eu atomic levels at low concentration is proposed to be due to the low-spectral overlap between fluorene emission and ligand absorption. The Tb-containing polymer emission evolves into a broad, polymer backbone-based green emission at higher concentrations and in the solid state. Here, the stabilization of phen triplet levels due to conjugation with respect to the Tb atomic levels prevents energy transfer to the Tb metal states. Solution time-resolved emission studies on both polymers showed that after complexation, in addition to the emission from the unmodified polymer, a new long wavelength singlet emission emerges with slightly longer lifetime (0.7–2 ns).

Polyaniline (PANI) is a promising conducting material to be used in a variety of electronic applications ranging from sensors, through solar cells to touch screens. Enhancing the electrical characteristics of polyaniline by increasing the charge carriers, using doping materials, allows for using it as a good alternative for semiconductors in the fabrication of integrated circuits. Zinc sulfide (Zns) is considered one of the attractive doping materials that improve the electrical characteristics of polyaniline owing to the distinctive optical characteristics in the visible range. In this work, a practical study on the electrical properties of polyaniline doped with zinc sulfide is presented and compared with pure PANI. Different volume rates of doping are tested, experimentally, and the results are collected. Voltage-current characteristics and the activation energy levels are obtained for different temperatures. From the results, it has been observed that the conductivity increases by increasing the doping rate and inversely related to temperature. A low activation energy level and improved I-V characteristics are shown to be approachable by careful choice of doping rate. Polyaniline doped with zinc sulfide provides low cost conductors for integrated circuits industry.

1 Department of Physics, College of science, Baghdad University, Baghdad, Iraq 2 Department of Physics, College of science, AL-Nahrain University, Baghdad, Iraq 3 School of Chemical Science and Food Technology, Faculty of Science and Technology, University Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia 4 Department of Chemistry, College of science, AL-Nahrain University, Baghdad, Iraq * E-mail: emad_yousif@hotmail.com; rahimi@ukm.edu.my

Circuit Design for Sensor Detection Signal Conditioner Nitrate Content. Nitrate is one of macro nutrients very important for agriculture. The availability of nitrate in soil is limited because it is very easy to leaching by rain, therefore nitrate could be contaminated ground water by over-process of fertilizer. This process could also produce inefficiency in agriculture if it happened continuesly without pre-analysis of farm field. The answer those problems, it is need to develop the ion sensor system to measure concentrations of nitrat in soil. The system is consist of nitrate ion sensor device, signal conditioning and data acquisition circuit. The design and fabrications of signal conditioning circuit which integrated into ion nitrate sensor system and will apply for agriculture. This sensor has been used amperometric with three electrodes configuration: working, reference and auxiliarry; the ion senstive membrane has use conductive polymer. The screen printing technique has been...

Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) films were modified with chemical polymerization of conductive polyaniline (PANI) in the presence of potassium dichromate as an oxidizing agent. The effect of aniline concentration on the grafting efficiency and on the electrical surface resistance of PAN and (PAN/PANI)-1-3 composite film was investigated. The surface resistances of the conductive composite films were found to be between 6.32 and 0.97 k /cm. As the amount of grafted PANI increased on the PAN films, the electrical resistance of composite film decreased. The PAN/PANI composite films were also characterized using SEM and FTIR. The changes in the surface properties of the films were characterized by contact angle measurements. As expected, the PAN, PAN/PANI and PAN/PANI-uricase immobilized films, exhibited different contact angle values and surface free energy due to different interactive functional groups of the films. The conductive films were well characterized and used for immobilization of uricase. The amount of adsorbed enzyme increases with the increase of surface concentration of grafted fibrous polyaniline polymer. The maximum amount of immobilized enzyme onto composite film containing 2.4% PANI was about 216 g/cm 2 (i.e., PAN/PANI-3). The immobilized uricase was reused 24 times in batch wise assay in a day. Finally, the immobilized uricase enzyme system was successfully fabricated and applied to determine the uric acid level in human serum samples.

nanotubes substrates have demonstrated some properties such as the increase of the PANI conducting ability [27,32,33] , the supercapacitive behavior [30,34] as well as better recovering properties by functionalizing the oxidized carbon nanotube with p-phenylenediamineamino before starting the polymerization [35]. Nevertheless, the attainment of a well controlled carbon nanotube substrate, with high purity degree, is still difficult and expensive. In this work, a detailed and simple route is described to prepare composites based on the direct chemical polymerization of PANI onto particles of conductive CB substrate (type Printex ® L6 from Degussa S.A). It is also demonstrated that this procedure presents great advantages such as the best control in the substrate recovering. The composites were characterized by thermal analysis, specific area, elemental analysis and AC conductivity. Experimental Aniline (Aldrich) was purified by distillation under reduced pressure in the presence of zinc powder. Conductive CB Printex ® L6 (10-1 S cm-1 in pressed samples) was purchased from Degussa. All reagents were analytical grade and used as received. The water used for the solutions was purified by the Milli-Q system (Millipore Inc.). The PANI was synthesized using aqueous HCl by the direct oxidation of the aniline with the addition of a solution of 0.25 M (NH 4) 2 S 2 O 8 using a monomer:oxidant molar ratio of 4:1 at 0 °C. The resulting PANI powder was dried under air atmosphere at 60 °C. The composites were prepared by maintaining CB under mechanical stirring for 1 hour in contact with acidic aqueous solutions of 1.0 M aniline in 1.0 M HCl. After that, the solution of 0.25 M (NH 4) 2 S 2 O 8 in 1.0 M HCl was drop wise

A NOvel green method for the synthesis of conductive nanocomposite-using silver nitrate, methyl cellulose (MC), glycerol, and aniline-was adopted. Here, silver nitrate was used as a precursor, methyl cellulose as both reducing and capping agent, glycerol as a co-reducing and ductility agent and water as solvent. While silver nitrate oxidizes aniline to polyaniline, it is reduced to silver nanoparticles. Doing so, both conductive polyaniline and conductive silver nanoparticle were in-situ synthesized via the formation of methyl cellulosesilver-polyaniline nanocomposite. Reproducibility of the nanocomposite revealed that the synthesis process is consistent. The nanocomposite film was characterized by FTIR, SEM, eDAX, XRD, and conductivity. XRD pattern showed poly crystallinity. TeM of the colloidal solution showed different particle shapes of AgNPs with size from 4-36 nm and d-spacing of 0.22 nm. SAED exhibits ring pattern with bright spots displaying polycrystallinity. Nanocomposite film, coated glass, cotton and polyester fabrics showed promising conductivity.

The amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) spectra of the conjugated polymer [2-methoxy-5-(2′- ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene] (MEH-PPV) is investigated under different conditions such as thin film and solution, solvent type and concentration. Results indicate that aggregation has a pronounced effect on ASE spectra. In solution form, as concentration was increased and thus the proportion of aggregates, a decrease in the ASE emission bandwidth and a red shift of the ASE peak was observed. For the thin film samples, the ASE spectra show two emission bands which were assigned to the first and second vibronic transition of the polymer chains.

A series of novel composites consisting of NiCuZn ferrite and cordierite crystallites was prepared by sintering mixtures of NiCuZn ferrite nanosized particles and MgO–Al2O3–SiO2 (MAS) glass powder. X-ray diffraction (XRD) results revealed that cordierite glass particles crystallize during sintering, resulting in the coexistence of NiCuZn ferrite with cordierite crystal phase in as-sintered composites. The resulting composites have tunable electromagnetic properties with high resonance frequencies, which may be used for multilayer chip inductors (MLCIs).

Bio-inspired materials designed for mimicking nature has gained attention in the last years, owing to their appealing properties, such as adhesive and self-cleaning properties. However, studies reporting bio-inspired sensors able to detect minimal amounts of pheromones are still scarce. Here we report on the functionalization of AFM cantilever with polyaniline (PANI), which was used as a sensor to detect pheromone 2-heptanone. This hormone is very significant for honey bees, which release it as a repellent scent marking to avoid enemies and other bees. The functionalization of the sensor was achieved by depositing a thin film of PANI in the emeraldine state on the cantilever through spin-coating. Infrared spectroscopy showed that the 2-heptanone was adsorbed by PANI film deposited on cantilever surface. The linear response of the coated cantilever sensor regarding 2-heptanone concentration for distinct temperatures was evaluated, as well as its mechanical behavior, hysteresis and storage time. The approach proposed here to functionalize AFM cantilever with PANI film to detect 2-heptanone showed a potential methodology for designing sensors able to detect minimal amounts of pheromones and natural compounds.