Using Supercritical CO2 as a Processing Medium to Synthesis Exfoliated Polyaniline-Clay Nanocomposites

Recently, supercritical CO2 (ScCO2) has received a lot of attention due to its desirable properties such as low cost, abundance, low toxicity, non-flammability, being chemicallyinert, and easily accessible supercritical conditions [1]. ScCO2 has been used as environmentally friendly solvent for a rangeof materials synthesis and process applications including polymerization and polymer purification, coating applications and powder formation [2-4]. Recently, some papers havereported the use of ScCO2 as an alternative process media for exfoliation of nano-clays in organic polymers and preparationof polymer–clay nanocomposites [5-6].Sun et al. reported successful preparation of fully delaminated polyaniline-claynanocomposites (PCNs) via the inverse emulsion polymerization in ScCO2 [7]. In this paper we present the results for synthesis of fully exfoliated polyaniline-clay nanocomposite via in-situ polymerization in ScCO2