Langmuir, Vol.28, No.15, 6468-6475, 2012
One-Pot Surfactantless Route to Polyaniline Hollow Nanospheres with Incontinuous Multicavities and Application for the Removal of Lead Ions from Water
Polyaniline (PANI) hollow nanospheres with controllable incontinuous nanocavities ranging in size from 10 to 50 nm as a novel hollow nanostructure have been successfully fabricated by chemical polymerization of aniline with chloroaurate acid as the oxidant and citric acid as the doping acid. Experimental factors, such as concentration and kind of oxidant and doping acid, were investigated to illustrate their effect on morphology of PANT. According to experimental results and time-dependent investigations, a possible formation mechanism involved was then proposed. The adaptability of this route to hollow nanostructures with multicavities of other conducting polymer was also revealed. Furthermore, the adsorption properties of PANT hollow nanospheres toward lead ions in water were investigated.