Electrical properties of polyaniline-based epoxy microcomposite

In this report, the composites are based on epoxy resin and PAni which was synthesized in-situ by chemical oxidative polymerisation of aniline with ammonium peroxydisulfate as oxidant in hydrochloric acid medium. The bulk polymer composites were made from a powder consisting of the epoxy micro-particles surrounded by the PAni (core-shell structure) with different percentage 1, 5 and 10 wt% of aniline-HCl. The AC electrical conductivity of these composites measured at room temperature showed that the presence of PAni in the epoxy matrix leads to an increase of its conductivity. By displaying the variation of conductivity as a function of the aniline-HCl content in the epoxy matrix at around 50 Hz, it was seen that the electrical conductivity increases with the percentage of aniline starting from as low as 1 wt%. The value of the AC conductivity at 50 Hz varies from 10-13 S/cm for pure epoxy to 10-10 S/cm for the composite with 1 wt% of aniline-HCl. FTIR analysis did not show any significant changes in the absorption peaks of composite epoxy-PAni. TGA analysis showed that sample with PAni starts to degrade at a lower temperature.