Synthesis of PANI-DBSA/multi-wall carbon nanotube/polymer nanocomposite for fabrication of bipolar plate in PEM fuel cell

Conducting polymers are finding increasing number of applications in various electronic devices such as chemical sensors, light diodes, etc. High molecular weight of polyaniline (PANI) has emerged as one of the most promising conduction polymer. Compared with other conducting polymers, PANI has significant importance because it exhibits good environmental stability, ease of prcessability and high conductivity especially a simple and reversible acid/base doping/dedoping chemical property. But its main disadvantages are poor thermal stability and poor processabilty both in melt and solution due to its stiffness of the backbone. The overcoming of these disadvantages was however possible due to the counterion inducing to the PANI's backbone, which can be achieved by doping PANI with functional protonic acids, such as dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid(DBSA). Recent studies have shown that, besides possibly improving the mechnical and electrical properties of polymers, the formation of polymer/CNT composites is considered as a capable approach for an incorporation of CNTs into polymer-based devices. Among these polymer/CNT composite, many reports have focused on the combination of CNT conducting polymers. Among various cinducting polyers, polyaniline(PANI) hs a potential use in synthesizing polymer/CNT composites due to its good processability, environmental stability and revesible control of conductivity both charge-transfer doping and protonation. Significant progress has been made in fabricating PANI/multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWNT), the doped PANI/MWNT composite with or without protonic acid synthesized by in situ polymerization.