Facile synthesis of poly(o-phenylenediamine) microfibrils using cupric sulfate as the oxidant

A rapid, templateless, surfactantless approach is proposed to prepare microfibrils by simply mixing of aqueous cupric sulfate and o-phenylenediamine (oPD) solutions at room temperature. The as-prepared poly(o-phenylenediamine) (PoPD) microfibrils have been characterized by optical microscope, transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Optical microscope and TEM provide the morphology of the PoPD microfibrils. XPS, FTIR, UV-vis and XRD were used for characterization of the structure of PoPD microfibrils. Moreover, possible formation mechanism of PoPD microfibrils was discussed. This method to prepare the one-dimensional (1-D) microstructures is simple, economic and easy to scale up. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.