Synthesis, characterization, conducting film production and antimicrobial studies of poly(acrylic acid)/polyaniline ladder copolymer material

In this study, poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), the inherently conducting polymer polyaniline (PANI) and PAA/PANI ladder copolymer materials were synthesized and various characteristic properties were investigated. PAA was generated by acidification reaction, PANI using optimized process conditions by in-situ polymerization and PAA/PANI ladder copolymer by coupling reaction methods. The PAA, PANI polymers and PAA/PANI ladder copolymer material films were prepared by drop-by-drop method. The electrical conductivities of HCl acid doped PAA, PANI and PAA/PANI ladder copolymer films were measured by the standard four-point-probing technique. It was observed that the PAA films had no electrical conductivity and that the electrical conductivities of PAA/PANI ladder copolymer films were lower than that of pure PANI. It was thought that the differences in conductivities of pure PANI and PAA/PANI ladder copolymers were due to the differing chemical structures of PANI and PAA/PANI ladder copolymer, and hence leading to differing charge mobilities. Characterizations of the PAA, PANI polymers and PAA/PANI ladder copolymers were performed by spectroscopic methods such as Ultraviolet-Visible Spectrophotometer (UV-Vis), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) and Photoluminescence (FL). The UV-Vis and FT-IR analyzes provided important information for the elucidation of the electronic and chemical structures of polymers and copolymers. The PL properties of PAA, PANI and PAA/PANI ladder copolymers were investigated and it was found that the photoluminescence intensity of PAA/PANI copolymer was higher than that of pure PANI. The amount of weight loss and thermal stability of the PAA, PANI polymers and PAA/PANI ladder copolymer were determined by the TGA method. The morphologies of the films prepared from synthesized polymers and copolymers were examined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). SEM analyses showed that the prepared films had a solid, uniform and homogeneous structure and appearance. The antimicrobial properties of the films obtained were also investigated in the last step of this study.