Conducting polystyrene/polyaniline blend through template-assisted emulsion polymerization

Electrically conducting polystyrene (PS)/polyaniline blends have been prepared through a one-step “anilinium-surfactant template”-assisted emulsion polymerization at room temperature. The self-assembled cylindrical An⁺PDPSA^? micelle formed inside the PS matrix can act as a structure directing template cum dopant. Morphological observation under scanning electron microscopic studies revealed that during the progress of polymerization, the initially formed nanostructured conducting polyaniline was changed into cubic/hexagonal/lamellar particles and finally transformed into a percolated structure inside the PS matrix. Blend was further characterized by UV-Vis spectroscopy, FTIR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, electrical conductivity, thermal stability, dielectric property, rheological property, and electromagnetic shielding efficiency. The key finding of this work is that the conductive blend prepared through micelle-guided polymerization exhibited superior electrical conductivity (9.6 S/m) with low percolation threshold concentration (5 wt%), excellent thermal stability, electromagnetic interference (EMI) SE of 1–10 dB which makes it a promising candidate for EMI shielding and antistatic discharge matrix for the encapsulation of microelectronic devices.