Processing of poly(o-toluidine) into fibers and their properties

Poly(o-toluidine), POT, with an inherent viscosity of 0.45 does not gel in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone (NMP) at a fiber spinnable concentration, e.g., 33 W.%. The behavior is quite different from that of parent polyaniline which gels readily even at a much lower concentration. Besides NMP, 100.2 W.% H2SO4 and m-cresol are used for preparation of spinning solutions. Air-gap spinning is employed to prepare fibers. The m-cresol solution of a POT/camphor sulfonic acid salt produces fibers having a much higher conductivity even without post-spinning doping with a protonic acid. Mechanical and electrical properties and structural characteristics of the POT fibers made from the three solutions are compared.