Conducting polyaniline/poly(tetrafluoroethylene) composite films with tunable surface morphology and hydrophilicity

A composite conductive polymer film, polyaniline-coated polytetrafluoroethylene, noted as PANI/PTFE, has been successfully synthesized by a simple chemical oxidation polymerization approach. The observed surface morphology of the PANI/PTFE film confirms that the network structural PTFE film acted as template in the synthesis of the composite film to get PANI@PTFE coaxial-line structure at a relative low oxidant concentration. By regulating the molar ratio of oxidant to monomer, the morphological evolution of the composite film could be controlled, resulting in the tunable hydrophilicity. As a consequence of an optimal combination of the characteristic features of PANI and PTFE, a composite film with excellent mechanical properties, high conductivity, easy processability, adjustable hydrophilicity and reversible conversion between hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity have been obtained.