Poly(aniline-co-2-hydroxyaniline): towards the thermal stability and higher solubility of polyaniline

Here, we adopted a donor–acceptor criteria for charge transfer and synthesize the thermally stable copolymers of poly(aniline-co-2-hydroxyaniline) (PA-co-2-HA) by in-situ copolymerization method having different compositions. The co-monomers used in the synthesis were aniline and 2-hydroxyaniline to obtain the (PA-co-2-HA). UV–Vis spectroscopy was used to see the change in bandgap (E_g) between HOMO and LUMO for the electronic transitions. FT-IR analysis has been performed to get functional details of polymers. The electrical conductivity copolymer was recorded by the two-probe method. The conductivity of copolymer depends upon the amount of molar feed in the composition. To probe the surface morphology and roughness profile, atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been applied. The thermal stability of the copolymers (PA-co-2-HA)s has been studied by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The particle size of the copolymer varies in the range of 100–500 nm as determined by particle size analyzer. The SEM analysis has been carried out to study the morphological behavior of the copolymer. ¹H-NMR spectroscopy was used to study the structural details of the protons present in the copolymer.