Structural and electrical properties of paper–polyaniline composite

Conducting polymers have generated a great deal of interest because of their physical and chemical properties as well as their potential application in industry particularly in packaging applications. However one of short comings of most conducting polymer is that they are often formed as intractable films that are difficult to process. To overcome this problem we have incorporated conducting polymer, namely polyaniline into sheets of paper in order to create new composite material which combine the universal properties of paper product with the chemical and electrically conducting properties of the conducting polymer. Paper conducting polymer composite have been prepared by polymerizing aniline directly onto the paper sheet using ammonium peroxydisulfate (APS) as an oxidant at different temperatures. The prepared composite was characterized by FT-IR and SEM. The thermo-oxidative degradation was studied by thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA); electrical conductivities measurements of the composites were significantly increased over those of the precursor paper.