Bernhard, we are have discussed solution - is it true or not, but it is decadence...

New generation chooses Pepsi and distillation of polymers instead of solutions :

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Polypyrrole_Distillation

:-))))))

haha! (but sure: Polypyrrole can not be distilled; maybe the guy misunderstood some publication, where people write they distill "pyrrole" (the monomer) first, then polymerize?)

Hi Bernhard,

about Na/NH3 - please read http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jp404023j ( I have electronic copy)

It is not colloid dispersion, it is real Na(+) solution - so this argumentation should be removed as justification of colloids in solution, by large black inks blob!

Next target is surface tension of conducting polymers - be patient :-)

Dr. Tsanov, how did you determine it was a true solution? which conductive polymer, which solvent had you used?

The self-soped and crown-ether modified polymers may be water-soluble. It is known fact. You may have read the review work of Jean Roncali about polythiophene. It's described there.

Dr. Tsanov, I will look at your papers later, here is my answer to your statement "is soluble or forms dispersion. In my opinion, at very low concentrations, the conductive polymers can be soluble. However, the solubility also should depend on their average M w - values":

IR spectroscopy can not tell you whether or not any material (including polyaniline or polythiophene) is soluble or not. 

I have made series of particle size measurements and reported about this in the papers I mentioned in my introductory question above: for any polymer which is truely soluble, starting with a certain concentration below which it will be soluble, the lower the concentration, the BIGGER the particle size because at lower concentration, the polymer chain will be more and more completely solubilized and therefore the chains unfold ==> the polymer particle gets bigger.

Not so with Polyaniline: at higher concentration but still having a good dispersion, you may find 40, 30, 20 nm particle size while lowering the concentration. as soon as you reach 10 nm and if you still lower the concentration, particles will not become bigger, they will always be 10 nm.

That tells you, you have a fine dispersion, the best you can get, and then you have isolated, well dispersed particles of 10 nm size.

With DBSA you can reach 10 nm; Xylene and Toluene have a solubility parameter which is far too low to be able to truelly dissolve PAni. DBSA acts as a detergent and helps to disperse PAni.

Solution and Dispersion are fundamentally different states of liquids: solutions are thermodynamically spoken equilibrium systems, dispersions are non-equilibrium systems. I have shown this in some of my publications as well.

sorry, yes, you used UV-VIS, but my comment for this is the same: you can not tell anything about particle size nor solubility.

re Mw, that is another big misunderstanding in this area: one can not determine PAni's Mw using GPC, because PAni is insoluble, you can only determine the retention time, but that does not tell you anything about Mw, but something about adsorption / desorption on the column materials.

For Mw, one needs to use MALDI-TOFF which results in very low Mw, like one dozen or so aniline units per chain. The chains are folded in helocal form within the 10 nm primary particle.

correcting a typo: The chains are folded in helical form within the 10 nm primary particle.

here the publication for your reference:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/49593603_New_Insight_into_Organic_Metal_Polyaniline_Morphology_and_Structure?_iepl%5BviewId%5D=nIJXBOrKuVTMYQ1L72A8kCNahWvJYBRJhSw0&_iepl%5Bcontexts%5D%5B0%5D=prfhpi&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BstandardItemCount%5D=5&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BuserSelectedItemCount%5D=5&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BtopHighlightCount%5D=1&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BstandardItemIndex%5D=4&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BstandardItem4of5%5D=1&_iepl%5BtargetEntityId%5D=PB%3A49593603&_iepl%5BinteractionType%5D=publicationTitle

Article New Insight into Organic Metal Polyaniline Morphology and Structure

Dr. Tsanov, thanks for your comments!

most of them I came across in research articles mentioned about low solubility. It seems they are not 100% soluble.

in fact, they are 100% INsoluble!

Useful info  - molecular weight of PANI, solubility in various solvents

Article Absolute Molecular Weight of Polyaniline

Andrei, actually I am very busy, not enough time to study the publication you mentioned in detail, but I can already say the following:

- without studying the particle size at various concentrations, one can not determine whether the polymer is truely soluble or just nicely well dispersed;

- the laser absorption applied in the paper can tell you the number of aniline units, but doesn't tell you whether they are fully solubilized (covered by solvent molecules); infact, what they found is the number of aniline units in a primary particle (or maybe secondary particles, further agglomerated, we can not know as they have not provided any particle size information

- GPC can not be taken as reference as for this, the same argument applies: how big are the particles, are they fully solubilized?

- Their argument information that reduction to LE lead to chain scission is interesting but wrong: LE particles have a much lower surface tension, so the chain elements which form the primary particles in ES are separating (ES primary particles consist of several subunits which can not be separated from each other in ES state, but EB and even more LE particles are smaller)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/49593603_New_Insight_into_Organic_Metal_Polyaniline_Morphology_and_Structure?_iepl%5BviewId%5D=XrEnzrPJtcOG0vsiZ62OdjPgPDFKMBjWdFIt&_iepl%5Bcontexts%5D%5B0%5D=prfhpi&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BstandardItemCount%5D=5&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BuserSelectedItemCount%5D=5&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BtopHighlightCount%5D=1&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BstandardItemIndex%5D=4&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BstandardItem4of5%5D=1&_iepl%5BtargetEntityId%5D=PB%3A49593603&_iepl%5BinteractionType%5D=publicationTitle

I would like to repeat that all studies so far show that particle size with further dilution does NOT increase (which would be the case if solubilisation increases). Instead, what you are dealing with are finely dispersed PAni particles.

Article New Insight into Organic Metal Polyaniline Morphology and Structure

Tilomir, yes, the bigger the particles are, the lower the specific absorption. This has nothing to do with solubility, but with the fact, that for the ES stage, the smallest primary particles size you can get is 10 nm. In a composite like you have, particle size will be 30 ... 60 ... 100 nm.

for Mw determination of PAni, only MADLI-TOFF can be used, and it results in about 12 Aniline units per chain; several chains are agglomerated and form the primary particle

sorry for the typo, should read MALDI-TOFF

MALDI-ToF(+) or MALDI-ToF (-)

Topic-related patent in attachment