Synthesis of Composites Based on Conducting Polymers and Carbon Nanotubes

3 Synthesis of Composites Based on Conducting Polymers and Carbon Nanotubes 

Another route for the preparation of composites based on PANI and SWNTs is electrochemical synthesis [26,30,144]. A common method for the electrochemical polymerization of aniline is cychc voltammetry. The aqueous acidic medium frequently used is HCl or H2SO4. It is well known that cyclic voltammograms of polyaniUne recorded in aqueous acidic media usually show two redox couples associated with the inteconversion between leucoemeraldine and emeraldine (first couple) and between emeraldine and pernigraniline (the second couple) [ 151 ]. At the potential of the second oxidation peak, PANI is unstable in 

Depending on the application type, the main composites result from three synthesis methods, i.e. mixing of the two constituents, and chemical and electrochemical polymerization, and are summarized in Table 5.1. 

CNTs Synthesis method Synthesis medium Composites 

SWNTs Mixing of PANI and CNTs Organic solvents such as N-methyl pyrroli dinone PAN I doped with large CNT fragments and CNTs covalently functionalized with PANI 

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