New approach for the development of reduced graphene oxide/polyaniline nanocomposites via sacrificial surfactant-stabilized reduced graphene oxide

Abstract An aggregation of graphene oxide (GO) during its reduction to reduced graphene oxide (rGO) limits its performance in nanocomposites. The use of rGO stabilized by a sacrificial surfactant should overcome this limitation and it yields nanocomposites with enhanced properties. A new, simple and cost-effective approach for the synthesis of polyaniline (PANI) nanocomposites based on rGO stabilized by a sacrificial surfactant was developed. Two routes of synthesis, the in situ and ex situ reduction, were compared. The former involved the reduction of GO already coated by PANI, forming rGO/PANIin whereas the latter involved the reduction of GO in the presence of a sacrificial surfactant to well-exfoliated rGO sheets followed by polymerization of aniline, forming rGO/PANIex. Differences in morphology and physical properties between rGO/PANIin and rGO/PANIex correlated with their chemical structure were raised. Accordingly, rGO/PANIin exhibited higher thermal stability but lower electrical conductivity (0.01 S·cm−1) compared to neat PANI (0.11 S·cm−1), while rGO/PANIex demonstrated thermal properties comparable to those of PANI and remarkable electrical conductivity (∼ 280 S·cm−1). Mechanistic insights into the interactions between rGO and PANI are proposed.