Highly conductive and thermally stable self-doping propylthiosulfonated polyanilines

A new type of highly conductive self-doping polyaniline, MPS-Pan, containing a sulfonic acid moiety covalently bonded to the polymer backbone through an electron-donating propylthio linkage has been successfully prepared via a novel concurrent reduction and substitution route. At a similar self-doping level, the resultant MPS-Pans displayed much higher conductivity than the corresponding sulfonated polyaniline (S-Pan). Furthermore, for fully doped samples, contrary to the trend of decreasing conductivity with the sulfonation degree in S-Pan, the conductivity of MPS-Pan was found to increase with its substitution degree. These results agreed with the expectation that electron-deficient charge carriers (e.g. semiquinone radical cations) on acid-doped polyaniline chains will be better stabilized by the electron-donating alkylthio substituent. Surprisingly, TG and XPS studies showed that MPS-Pan was thermally much more stable than S-Pan, with S-Pan starting to lose its sulfonic acid dopant at 185 degreesC, while MPS-Pan remained intact up to similar to260 degreesC.