Introduction of the Preparation of Conductive Polyanilines by Electro-oxidative Polymerization into an Educational Experiment for College Students

Abstract

In this paper, an educational experiment is devised about the preparation and morphology observation of two conductive polyanilines (polyaniline and poly(N-methylaniline)), which are regarded as useful advanced functional materials. This experiment enables students to provide 1) measurements of current-potential curves (cyclic voltammograms) during the electro-oxidative polymerization of the corresponding aniline monomers, 2) operation of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) device and the morphology observation of the obtained polyanilines, 3) watching the formation of the colored oligomer species, 4) confirmation of the colored films of the polyanilines. The SEM observation revealed that the surfaces of the polyanilines had leaf-like, fibrous, and spherical structures in m-order. Questionnaires were used for the students to survey attitudes to this experiment and favorable answers were obtained about 1) to 4) for the entire student. Attempt to introduce advanced functional materials such as polyanilines into an educational experiment is expected to be useful for students majoring chemistry and applied chemistry, some of who become researchers in the future.