Conducting Polymers: Polyniline, Its State of the Art and Applications

Abstract

Polymers seem to provide a solution to almost every deed in life, from preparing daily commodities, the highly sophisticated to, artificial heart valve. Till recently, heat resistant, electrically conducting, ferromagnetic, semiconducting and superconducting polymers were a dream, but today, all these miracles are coming true, at least on laboratory stage, few of them have also been commercialized. Since desirable properties can be conveniently attained by tailoring the polymer structure and also by incorporating additives, scientists have been enthusiastic to explore the possibility of transforming insulating polymers into conducting or semiconducting materials envisaging such special characteristics like low density, low cost, ease of fabrication, flexibility of design, low energy and labour requirements for fabrication and processing, which make polymers a class of versatile materials capable of meeting even the most stringient specifications of modern technology. In the present work, an attempt has been made to review the most interesting and fascinating aspects of conducting polymers. We also propose to synthesize and characterize polyaniline as one of the important conducting material and explore its uses as molecular materials in electronic/electrical devices.