Abstract

Background: There has been continuous effort to explore different aspects of both inherently conducting polymers (ICPs) and polymeric gels. Conducting gels are likely to find uses in the design of biocompatible materials, electrically controlled drug release and related biomedical applications.

Objective: Like many other ICPs, polyaniline (PANI) cannot be turned to gel easily because of its insolubility and intractability nature. Different attempts were made to get PANI as thermo reversible gel. There are limited references where PANI has been combined with crosslinked hydrogels.

Method: Electrically conductive gel of PANI entrapped in a hydrogel viz. Poly (2-acrylamido-2- methyl-1-propanesulphonic acid) (PAMPS) was synthesized by a simple two-step method. At first PAMPS gel was synthesized following UV- photo induced polymerization technique. Then homogeneously dispersed monomer aniline in this PAMPS gel was polymerized using ammonium peroxodisulphate as oxidizing agent.

Results: Characterizations have revealed that PANI formed in this PAMPS-PANI gel network in chemically pure protonated i.e., emeraldine form with retention of its conductivity. Intermolecular Hbonding and interconnected porous network structure of the formed gel were established. The measured ac conductivity data of the gel confirmed that the correlated barrier hopping (CBH) model is the most likely mechanism for the electron transport for all systems studied.

Conclusion: Since the studied PAMPS-PANI gel possesses higher conductivity than PAMPS itself with the retention of its existing properties it may provide potential application in different fields, such as better drug release and also in fabricating electromechanical devices with lower energy consumption.

Keywords: AC conductivity, CBH model, conducting gel, FTIR spectra, PAMPS-PANI gel, surface morphology.

Graphical Abstract