Advances in processing routes for conductive polyaniline fibres

Fibres have been wet spun from a sulfonic acid doped polyaniline solution. The fibres are inherently electrically conductive with conductivities of 100 (±30) Scm−1. Hot drawing of the fibres to 00 % elongation leads to an approximately ten fold increase in the conductivity. Typical fibres have a Youngʹs modulus of 0.2 GPa, and a tensile strength at break of 50 MPa. We report the annealing of fibres, raising the Youngʹs modulus to 2 GPa and the tensile strength at break to 0.1 GPa.