Freestanding electrically conducting flexible membranes based on novel chitosan/PANI/rGO nanocomposites

Biopolymer chitosan (CS) based conducting membranes has been prepared with varied compositions of PANI and rGO through facile precipitation and casting method. These CS/rGO/PANI based flexible freestanding membranes were characterised using FT-IR, SEM, Contact angle and Raman spectroscopy. The conductivity was evaluated using a two-probe technique. Upon comparing different compositions, it was observed that the flexible membrane composed of 1% CS/PANI/rGO exhibited maximum conductivity of 2.8 x 10(-2) S/cm while retaining the Young's Modulus at 150 MPa. These materials are expected to have potential applications in flexible electronics. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.