It has been demonstrated in this study that the substituents on the monomer aniline benzene ring are able to introduce the significant differences to the resulting polyaniline's collective properties. We systematically evaluated the structural perturbation effects of two substituents (methyl and methoxy) of aniline monomer through the electrochemical method. Our results showed that the methoxy group induces the less structural perturbation than the methyl counterpart, because of its partial double bond restriction. The morphologies are different for the polyaniline and the ring-substituted polyanilines, in which substituted polyanilines feature the larger porosities with the addition of these side groups. The influential effects of the methoxy side group have been further illustrated and amplified by its superior sensing performance towards the environmentally-significant sulfur dioxide gas, evaluated through the construction of the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM)-based gas sensor with these polyaniline materials. The as-constructed gas sensor's sensitivity, selectivity and stability in terms of its SO2 responses have been evaluated in details. The methoxy-substituted polyaniline was tested to show the unique gas sensing properties for the sulfur dioxide at the low concentrations (50-250 ppm) and function as the adsorbing material at the high concentrations (500-1250 ppm). Thus it can be used both as sensing material as well as a novel filter and/or storage reservoir for the removal of sulfur dioxide pollutant from the environments.
Keywords: Adsorbing material; Gas sensing; Polyaniline; Quartz crystal microbalance; SO2.