Ageing of PANI: chemical, structural and transport consequences

Chemical, structural and transport consequences of PANI have been studied for two types of samples: hydrochloric acid protonated PANI powders and camphorsulfonic acid protonated PANI films cast from m-cresol solutions. Different characterization techniques have been applied: elemental analysis, FTIR, XPS, XRD, and conductivity measurements. The combination of these techniques enables us to identify three main degradation processes: dedoping, oxidation/hydrolysis/scission of the chains, and crosslinking. The impact of ageing on transport properties is briefly discussed and a simple model taken into account the kinetics of the conductivity decay is postulated.