Conductive Inks with 3D Conductive Networks of Polyaniline Crystals Nanofibers

Conductive polymer inks [1-5] are attractive for practical applications such as electronic circuit line, organic electrodes, sensors and capacitors, due to their printing performance, conductivity and chemical properties.Generally, nanofibers [6][7][8][9] are better conductive materials for inks because they can easily disperse and form 3D conductive networks [10,11].However, the conductivity and stability of polymer inks are still not very high owing to disordered molecular chains of nanofibers [12][13][14][15][16]. Therefore, investigations in improving crystallinity of the nanofibers is a hot spot in preparation of high quality conductive polymer inks.Conductive ink generally refers to metal nanoparticles, metal nanowires, or transparent conductive oxide materials, such as indium tin oxide.These materials have high electrical conductivity, but they also have significant limitations.The main problem with total cost of ownership is the scarcity of available materials available to meet the continuous demand of global consumers, coupled with high production costs and poor mechanical flexibility may be a problem, however, recent progress reports indicate that total cost of ownership use is well tolerable to bending.Metal nanoparticles and nanowires are typically made up of metals such as gold, silver and copper, which are highly conductive but costly.Here, we report a general route to create a series of Polyaniline (PANI) crystal nanofibers.The method takes place of room temperature and does not depend on any specific agents, equipment or heating, cooling and complex procedures, which is especially suitable for producing bulk quantities of high-quality and lowcost PANI crystal nanofibers for conductive polymer inks.The idea of preparing crystal nanofibers of PANI is very interesting and could potentially lead to significant advancements in polymer crystallization. EXPERIMENTAL SECTIONAll of the reagents including aniline, citric acid and Ammonium Persulfate (APS) are of analytical grade.They were used in experiments without further purification.Double distilled water was used throughout the experiment to prepare the solutions.Aniline, citric acid and APS were all purchased online.Aniline also known as anilin, anilin oil, amino benzene, molecular formula: C 6 H 7 N. Colorless oily liquid.Slightly soluble in water, soluble in ethanol, ether and other organic solvents.Aniline is one of the most important amines.Mainly used in the manufacture of dyes, drugs, resins, but also can be used as rubber vulcanization accelerator.It can also be used as a black dye itself.Citric acid is an important organic acid, the appearance is colorless crystal, odorless, has a strong sour taste, easily soluble in water.According to its water content, it is divided into monohydrate citric acid and anhydrous citric acid.APS, chemical formula: (NH 4 ) 2 S 2 O 8 , contains peroxy group, is a strong oxidant.Mainly used as oxidant, bleach, disinfectant, photographic materials, analytical reagents, etc. Research shows that APS is widely used in battery industry as oxidant and bleaching agent.Using aniline, citric acid and APS as raw materials, PANI nanometer powder was prepared by in situ polymerization.