Various morphologies of polythiophene have been designed and successfully prepared by chemical oxidative polymerization in the presence of phase transfer catalyst (PTC) cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) in aqueous medium. The morphologies of polythiophene could be controlled in ribbons, fibers and spherical particles by changing the concentrations of reductant, oxidant and phase transfer catalyst. The structure, thermal stability and the conductivity have been characterized, and a mechanism for the transformation of the morphology of polythiophene has been proposed.
Monodisperse polypyrrole（PPy） composite microspheres and hollow capsules based on the monodisperse core-shell gel template particles were prepared. The core-shell gel particles were obtained by the inward sulfonation of monodisperse polystyrene particles. The shell thickness and core size were synchronously controlled in the particle radius range. After the polymerization initiated by ammonium per sulfate（APS）, PPy was formed in the sulfonated polystyrene shell. PPy hollow capsules were derived after the polystyrene cores were dissolved: their cavity size and shell thickness were synchronously controlled by using core-shell gel particles with different sulfonation extent. It is interesting that if Fe3+ was adsorbed into the sulfonated polystyrene shell as the initiator, the PPy-shell collapsed into a pile of small particles when the polystyrene core was dissolved.
A series of near or monodisperse styrene-butyl acrylate (SBA) copolymer latex particles with different butyl acrylate contents were coated with polypyrrole. The struc- ture of the SBA/PPy composites was characterized by trans- mission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron mi- croscopy (SEM), diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier trans- form spectroscopy (DRIFT), X-ray photoelectron spectros- copy (XPS), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and standard four-probe method. The core-shell morphology of the SBA/PPy composite particles was confirmed. The result of DSC showed that Tg of the composite is mainly determined by the core component. The effects of the concentration of polypyrrole, the butyl acrylate content in SBA copolymer and the nature of the counter-anion on the electrical conduc- tivity of compression-moulded samples were studied. It was first found that the electrical conductivity of the samples can be tuned by varying the butyl acrylate content in SBA co- polymer and the highest conductivity of the core-shell com- posite was 0.17 S·cm?1.
