Synthesis of nano-sized polypyrrole-coated polystyrene latexes

Nano-sized polystyrene (PS) latex particles were prepared by miniemulsion polymerization using both sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and n-hexadecane as surfactant and co-surfactant, respectively. The size of the PS latex particles was in the range of 50–70 nm. The PS particles were coated with polypyrrole (PPy) via in situ polymerization of pyrrole with FeCl3. The actual PPy loading on the PS particles increased as the amount of pyrrole added increased. The conductivities of the pellets prepared from the PPy-coated PS latex particles increased as the PPy loading increased. The conductivity of the disk pellets of the particles was 15.4 cm when the PPy loading was 61 wt%, which is much greater than that of the reported micro-sized (∼1500 nm) PPy-coated PS latex particles (3 S/cm).