Supercritical carbon dioxide assisted preparation of conductive polypyrrole/cellulose diacetate composites

Abstract

Abstract Supercritical carbon dioxide (SC‐CO 2 ) has been used to assist the preparation of conductive polypyrrole/cellulose diacetate (PPy/CDa) composites by in situ chemical oxidative polymerization. The morphology and conductivity of resulted composites were investigated with scanning electron microscopy and four‐probe method, respectively. With the assistance of strong swelling effect of SC‐CO 2 , composite films were obtained with a macroscopically homogeneous structure and conductivity up to 10 −1 S cm −1 order of magnitude. Increasing the pressure of SC‐CO 2 increased conductivity, while increasing the temperature decreased conductivity. For comparison, PPy/CDa composite was also prepared with conventional oxidative method in aqueous solution. From the viewpoint of conductivity and environmental protection, the SC‐CO 2 method showed its superiority over the conventional one. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 100: 4575–4580, 2006