Surface modification of temperature-responsive polymer particles by an electrically conducting polyaniline shell layer

In this research an attempt was made to prepare biocompatible electrically conductive composite polymer particles in view of their wide applications in biotechnology. Temperature-sensitive polymer particles have applications as drug carriers, bioseparators, bioreactor cell activators and diagnostic reagents. So a combination of diverse properties in a single polymer composite is expected to increase its application potential. Here temperature-responsive poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide-methyl methacrylate-N,N′-methylene-bis-acrylamide) (P(NIPAM-MMA-MBAAm)) core particles were prepared by emulsion copolymerization without using any stabilizer. In a second step seeded chemical oxidative polymerization of different amounts of aniline was carried out in the presence of submicron-sized core particles to obtain P(NIPAM-MMA-MBAAm)/polyaniline composite particles. For a comparative study, reference polyaniline particles were prepared by chemical oxidative polymerization. Fourier transform IR spectroscopy, UV−visible spectroscopy, thermal and X-ray diffraction analyses showed that composite particles prepared with higher aniline content (0.8 g) per unit mass (g) of core particles had high surface coverage compared with lower aniline content (0.1 g). © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry