Preparation and characterization of conductive chitosan-poly[N-(3-trimethoxysilylpropyl)aniline] hybrid submicrostructures

Conducting hybrid submicrostructures composed of chitosan (CS and silica-based conducting poly[ N -(3-trimethoxysilylpropyl)aniline] (PTMSPA were prepared by graft copolymerization. The spherical and fibrous morphologies of the CS-PTMSPA hybrid submicrostructures could be observed by optical and field emission electron microscopy. Under room temperature conditions, the CS-PTMSPA graft copolymers possessed the uniformly distributed spherical submicroparticles with diameters in the range of ca . 400–1,000 nm. On the other hand, under ice cold conditions (5 °C), CS-PTMSPA showed the development of randomly oriented fiber bundles. The diameter of a single fiber was in the range of ca . 100–500 nm. These CS-PTMSPA fibers were obtained by a temperature-driven template-free self-assembly pathway. Spectroscopic and thermal evaluations confirmed that CS-PTMSPA graft copolymer had been prepared by an oxidative polymerization method. The electrochemical performance of the CS-PTMSPA submicrostructures were compared with CS and PTMSPA by cyclic voltammetry with the Fe(CN) 6 3−/4− system as a redox marker. The CS-PTMSPA submicrostructures showed high electrical conductivity (difference between the anodic and cathodic peaks = 0.24 and 0.29 V for CS-PTMSPA sphere and fiber, respectively compared to those of CS (0.14 V and PTMSPA (0.20 V), which was ascribed to the relatively high surface-to-volume ratios of these submicrostructures.