The effects of dopant and solvent on morphology, conductivity and mechanical properties of polyacrylonitrile / polyaniline composite nanofibers

In this study, the effects of different dopants such as camphorsulfonic acid (CSA), dodecylbenzene sulfonic acid sodium salt (DBSANa+), different solvents such as N,N'-dimethylformamide (DMF), and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and different mixing processes such as magnetic mixing and mechanical mixing on the morphology, conductivity and mechanical properties of PAN/PANi composite nanofibers are investigated. It has been seen that composite nanofibers had the smallest fiber diameter, lowest conductivity and lowest mechanical properties when CSA (dopant) and DMF (solvent) are used. However, the composite nanofibers in which the polyaniline is doped with CSA in DMSO (solvent) had better conductivity and mechanical properties, besides having thicker diameters. When the mixing effects compared, mechanical mixing process resulted in higher mechanical properties of nanofibers compared to magnetic mixing process, while there was not much difference between fiber diameter and conductivity values.