Gellan gum-graft-polyaniline--An electrical conducting biopolymer.

Grafting of polyaniline (PANI) on to gellan gum (GG) was carried out in the presence of catalytic amount of ammonium peroxydisulfate (APS) as oxidant/initiator under mild acidic conditions by microwave irradiation technique. The grafting condition was optimized by varying the microwave power, exposure time and the composition of the reaction mixture. The graft copolymer GG-g-PANI was characterized by FTIR, TGA, UV/vis, (1)H NMR and SEM techniques. The characteristic peaks at 1506, 1462, 1070 and 830 cm(-1) in the IR spectrum and signals at 7.3, 7.2, 7.1 and 4.0 δ in the (1)H NMR spectrum confirms the grafting process. The TGA data reveals GG-g-PANI to be thermally less stable than GG. The optimum grafting was observed when the reaction mixture containing 0.066 mmol APS, 0.1M aniline, 1M hydrochloric acid and 0.1g/dL GG was exposed to 80 W microwave power for 40s. The DC and AC conductivity of the GG-g-PANI were measured using the 'Two-point probe' method based on which the dielectric properties were evaluated. GG-g-PANI exhibited appreciable electrical conductivity, which increased with the extent of grafting. The results indicate threefold increase in DC conductivity of graft copolymer as compared to GG.