Enhanced conductivity and thermal stability of conductive polyaniline/graphene composite synthesized by in situ chemical oxidation polymerization with sodium dodecyl sulfate

The polyaniline (PANI)/graphene composites have been successfully synthesized by in situ chemical oxidation polymerization using various concentrations of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) solution. FESEM, FTIR, UV-Vis,TGA and XPS were used to characterize their structure and properties. These results of FTIR, UV-Vis and XPS reveal that the fabricated PANI/graphene composites are in the doped state. With the addition of SDS, the thermal stability of PANI/graphene composites can be enhanced about 6-14 C. The conductivities of PANI/graphene composites are strongly dependent on the content of SDS. Maximum conductivity of PANI/graphene composite (90.3 S/cm) can be obtained by adding 250 mg/ml SOS, which is about two times of magnitude higher than that of PANI/graphene composites without SDS. These data demonstrate the addition of SOS served as a dopant can be incorporated to affect the pi-pi* transition of the PANI structure, thus improve the conductivity of fabricated PANI/graphene composites. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.