Ageing of PANI: chemical, structural and transport consequences

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