Electrical conductivity of microwave heated polyaniline nanotubes and possible mechanism of microwave absorption by materials.

In the course of experiments to perform deprotonation and carbonization of doped polyaniline (PANI) nanotubes (NTs) by irradiating directly 2.45 GHz microwave (MW) in our microwave heating system (MWHS), we have discovered that the PANI-NTs self heat by absorbing the MW but the temperature of the PANI-NTs stops rising around 300 degrees C in spite of the heightened MW power Furthermore, we have found that the MW irradiated PANI-NTs have transferred from electrical conductor to insulator depending on the temperature of the PANI-NTs. By measuring electron spin resonance (ESR) spectra of the MW heated PANI-NTs, the existence of the unpaired electrons is shown to have a strong correlation between the degree of MW absorption and the transition in the electrical conductivities.