Electronic conduction in polyaniline-polyethylene oxide and polyaniline-Nafion blends: Relation to morphology and protonation level

We present a comprehensive study of the transport properties in polyaniline-Nafion and polyaniline-polyethylene oxide, lithium trifluoromethane sulfonimide complex blends, together with a careful characterization of the morphology and the polyaniline protonation level. They include conductivity measurements as a function of both the polyaniline content of the blends and the temperature for a given composition. We show that percolation theory can account for the data provided that hopping and tunneling are taken into account. Moreover, in the polyaniline-Nafion blends, the variation of the polyaniline protonation level with the blend composition appears as a crucial parameter. The leading conduction mechanism is shown to be a hopping process between highly conducting polyaniline grains, the parameters of which are determined by the blend composition, and the protonation level.