Facile preparation of highly conductive, flexible, and strong carbon nanotube/polyaniline composite films

In general, the high electrical conductivity (EC) comes into conflict with the good flexibility and high strength of carbon nanotube (CNT)/polyaniline (PANI) composites. In other words, a high CNT content will bring about a high EC but lead to a low flexibility and strength due to the CNT-constrained matrix deformation and CNT aggregation. In this work, a highly conductive, flexible and strong CNT/PANI composite film prepared via a facile solvent-evaporation method is readily obtained by a cold stretching. The cold stretching is conducted at room temperature for the CNT/PANI film. It is observed that the cold stretching process leads to an unexpectedly enhanced EC. The as-obtained EC of 231 S/cm is much higher than that (2-50 S/cm) of the previously reported CNT/PANI composite films. Meanwhile, the strength is obviously improved over that of the pure PANI film and the good flexibility is maintained to a high degree by the introduction of a proper CNT content. (c) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2015, 53, 1575-1585