Polyaniline proton doping for sensor application

The use of conducting polymer (CPs) as sensitive material in the development of chemiresistors is investigated for environmental monitoring and clinical diagnostics. Much efforts, in sensor field, are directed to exploit conductive polymer (CPs) properties. A limitation common to all CPs is however the poor selectivity. The objective is therefore to tune the polymer properties to make the sensor selective versus specific analytes. A first approach has been to increase the specific surface area of the PANi to obtain an improved interaction with the gas molecules. The second approach is to evaluate the effect of different protonation or doping PANI with inorganic acids (e.g. HCl, H₂SO₄) or organic acids (camphor sulfonic acid, p-toluene sulphonic acid, polystyrene sulfonic acid) on the sensing performance.