Aniline oligomers possess almost identical physical and chemical properties as the conducting polyaniline. Without the polymer natures and defined chain lengths, the initial order of doping is first examined by the aniline tetramer, providing insight into the doping chemistry under the condition of an insufficient amount of dopants. The electropolymerization of the aniline tetramer upon oxidative and reductive cycling under different potential windows is also studied by using direct mass spectrometry analysis. The cyclic voltammetry tests result in slightly polymerization and chain scission for the two electrodes, respectively. The results reach implications for energy storage devices, especially for designing future supercapacitors when using the conducting polymer family. Polyaniline, on the other hand, has many doping sites each string and forms robust freestanding films due to entanglements. The mechanical properties of the films doped with different dopants are reported. The results state how ions affect the strength of the films, and the idea might expand to other conducting polymers and composite materials.

Aniline oligomers and polyaniline: Supercapacitors and freestanding films

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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