Fabrication of high conductivity dual multi-porous poly (l-lactic acid)/polypyrrole composite micro/nanofiber film

Dual multi-porous PLLA (poly(l-lactic acid))/H₂SO₄-doped PPy (polypyrrole) composite micro/nano fiber films were fabricated by combining electrospinning with in situ polymerization. The morphologies and structures of the resulting samples were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). It was found that the composite micro/nano fibers exhibited a core-shell structure and the composite fiber film had a dual multi-pore structure composed of pores both in the fibers and among the fibers. Semiconductor parameter analyzer was used to characterize the electrical properties of the samples. It was interesting to find that all the PLLA/H₂SO₄-doped PPy composite micro/nano fiber films had higher conductivity than H₂SO₄-doped PPy particles when the polymerization time up to 180 min. Effects of the pyrrole synthesis conditions on the pore size and the conductivity of PLLA/PPy composite fiber film were assessed. By optimizing the polymerization conditions, the max conductivity of this composite fiber film was about 179.0 S cm⁻¹ with a pore size of about 250 μm. The possible mechanism of PLLA/H₂SO₄-doped PPy composite micro/nano fiber films had much higher conductivity than H₂SO₄-doped PPy particles was discussed.