Doping of polyaniline by transition metal salts: effect of metal cation on the film morphology

Abstract Transition metal salts have been employed as dopants leading to conductive polyaniline (PANI) films. These dopants were found to be able to interact with polyaniline chains directly and to induce changes in morphology of polyaniline films, thus leading to the metal cation-induced processibility of these films. It was found two opposite tendencies of doping, resulting in formation of conductive films with different morphologies. The typical salts leading to these opposite tendencies are NiCl 2 , EuCl 3 , on the one hand, and ZnCl 2 on the other hand, respectively.