Conductive polymers belong certainly to the most promising materials in current research. They have a high potential for a great variety of different applications as for example for super capacitors, antistatic coatings for electronic packaging, electrodes for organic LEDs or for novel types of sensors [1]. This contribution deals with the plasma based synthesis of intrinsically conductive polymers which can be produced either in the form of thin films or as nanoaparticles and nanoparticle deposits. Despite the successful application of plasma processes for the deposition of thin films in general (in particular on an industrial scale) the plasma based synthesis of conductive polymers still remains a great challenge in particular with respect to the avoidance of excessive cross linking reactions.

This paper will mainly focus on polymerization processes in low temperature plasmas containing aniline. Aniline (C₆H₇N, prototypical aromatic amine) is a monomer used in industry for production of for example polyurethane precursors, but also in the production of polyaniline. Polyaniline was one of the first conducting polymers used in practice (e.g. as an antistatic coating material) in particular due to its high stability also in aggressive chemical environments due to its unique complex properties and due it slow manufacturing cost. Recent works showed that PANI nanostructures and in particular PANI nanoparticles are also promising materials for microwave absorption [3].

This contribution will discuss experiments concerning the deposition of thin films and the production of nanoparticles in a capacitively coupled (low temperature) plasma operated in mixtures of noble gases and aniline. The experiments comprise the analysis of the plasma (plasma mass spectroscopy, in-situ multi pass FTIR spectroscopy, Laser light scattering, microwave interferometry) and the analysis of the obtained material (NEXAFS, XPS, FTIR, SEM). The discussion will be completed by some general remarks about the control of plasma based polymerisation processes in particular by using pulsed plasmas.

Acknowledgments: The financial support of the European Commission under the FP7 Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Technology Initiative grant agreement FP7-2012-JTI-FCH-325327 for the SMARTCat project is gratefully acknowledged, as well as support obtained by French Region Centre project APR IR Capt’Eau.

[1] T.K. Das and S.Prusty, Polymer-Plastics Technology and Engineering, 51: 1487–1500, 2012

[2] M. Atesa, T. Karazehir and A. Sezai Sarac, Current Physical Chemistry, 2012, 2, 224-240

[3] P. Zhang, X.Han, L. Kang, R. Qiang, W. Liu and Y. Du, RSC Advances, 2013, 3, 12694