An Early Example Polyaniline

But the conductive polymer story in its widest sense apparently started as early as 1862, when El. Letheby, a chemistry professor at the College of the London Hospital, tried to check the behavior and selected chemical reactions of aniline. He was motivated by two cases of fatal poisoning by nitrobenzene, where aniline had been found as a metabolite in the stomach of the victims.i  

Letheby electropolymerized aniline sulfate to a bluish-black solid layer on a platinum electrode and published his results in the Journal of the Chemical Society The chemical nature of the colored, aniline-derived layer essentially remained more or less unknown at that time. The same is true for several 

The response from the scientific community seemed to be very unsatisfactory for the authors, as traceable by the frustrated debate after the Nobel Prize decision in the year 2000. In a few words Both publications with medical background remained curiosities, only moderately recognized. Right  

Several other publications appeared around the turn of the century, sometimes in less common journals (see Liechti and Suida, Dobroserdoff, Grandmougin,22 Bottinger and Petzold, and Nover ), and with some erroneous chemical interpretations. They do not need to be discussed here in detail. The mistakes are excused by the complicated chemistry and the state of analytical methods at that time. 

A deeper knowledge of polyaniline evolved between 1907 and 1911, when future Nobel Laureate Richard Willstatter in his typical, strictly methodic way of research, characterized the oligomeric oxidation products of aniline. Starting only a short time later Arthur G. Green et al. at the Department of Tinctorial Chemistry of the University of Leeds also studied polyaniline and completed, corrected, and reinterpreted Willstatter s results. Willstatter replied controversially, and Green answered once more —a rather typical scientific dispute in those days. 

---