Electrically conducting nylon 6,6–polyaniline short composite fibres synthesised by the solvent coagulation method

Polyaniline (PANI) was blended with nylon 6,6 in concentrated H2SO4 and HCl solutions. The solvent coagulation method was utilised to extract short composite fibres of a centimetre in length. A solution of n-butyl acetate, acetone, toluene, 1 μM HCl and chloroform were used as coagulating bath to extract the fibres. The diameters of the fibres ranged from 200 to 300 nm, while the length measured approximately 1 cm, as determined from Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The electrical conductivity varied from 10−4 to 10−2 S/cm for different mass fractions of PANI (xPANI) in the composite fibres. The percolation threshold was reached at xPANI values between 0.15 and 0.2, and further addition of PANI resulted in saturation of the conductivity of the composite fibre. To observe the effect of MWCNTs on the electrical conductivity of the nylon–PANI fibres, 0.04 g, 0.08 g, 0.4 g and 0.5 g of MWCNTs (1, 2, 10, 12.5 weight percentage, respectively) were added into the nylon–PANI solution and were extracted as fibres in the aforementioned solvents. The electrical conductivity of the short fibres increased by an order of magnitude (0.372 S/cm at 12.5 wt.%) when they were extracted in the presence of the MWCNTs. PANI doped in concentrated HCl exhibited an electrical conductivity of 4.46 S/cm.