Facile preparation of conductive paint made with polyaniline/dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid dispersion and poly(methyl methacrylate)

Abstract

Abstract We investigated an easy way to prepare industrially a conductive paint made with polyaniline (PANI)/dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid (DBSA) dispersion and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) in organic media. First, water‐dispersible PANI doped with DBSA was chemically synthesized with aniline sulfate using ammonium persulfate in water, and the resulting PANI/DBSA was readily extracted from the reaction medium with a mixture of toluene and methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) (toluene:MEK = 1:1 (v/v)), which is useful for industrial applications. The obtained PANI/DBSA organic dispersion was mixed with PMMA organic solution to give the corresponding PANI/DBSA conductive paint containing PMMA. A film prepared with the resulting PANI/DBSA conductive paint was found to possess relatively good conductivity and low surface resistivity for a conductive paint utilized for an electrostatic discharge even at low PANI/DBSA content in the PANI/DBSA–PMMA composite film (the conductivity and the surface resistivity were 9.48 × 10 −4 S cm −1 and 3.14 × 10 6 Ω cm −2 , respectively, when the feed ratio of PANI/DBSA:PMMA was 1:39 (w/w)). Furthermore, it was found that the conductivity of the film composed of PANI/DBSA–PMMA composite can be readily and widely controlled by the PANI/DBSA content of the composite or by the amount of DBSA used during the PANI/DBSA synthesis. The highest conductivity of PANI/DBSA–PMMA composite film (7.84 × 10 −1 S cm −1 ) was obtained when the feed ratio of PANI/DBSA:PMMA was 1:4 (w/w). Copyright © 2007 Society of Chemical Industry