Microwave-assisted synthesis, characterization of electrical conducting and electrochemical xanthan gum-graft-polyaniline

Grafting of polyaniline (PANI) onto xanthan gum (XG) was achieved under acidic conditions employing microwave irradiation technique. The grafting conditions were optimized by varying the microwave power, exposure time and the composition of the reaction mixture. The graft copolymer was characterized by FTIR, UV-Vis, TGA, XRD, SEM and cyclic voltammetric techniques. The DC conductivity of the grafted polymer was measured by the two probe method. The enhancement in conductivity was observed for xanthan gum-graft-polyaniline (XG-g-PANI) over XG. The cyclic voltammetric studies indicated increase in conductivity of graft copolymer with increase in PANI content.