The formation of 2D polyaniline (PANI) has attracted considerable interest due to its expected electronic and optoelectronic properties. Although PANI was discovered over 150 years ago, obtaining an atomically well-defined 2D PANI framework has been a longstanding challenge, until now.
An international team of researchers, affiliated with UNIST has recently announced that they have successfully demonstrated the atomic-level true 2D PANI structure, for the first time, via direct solid-state reaction of organic single crystals.
The findings appear online in PNAS Early Edition, co-authored by Javeed Mahmood (Postdoc, School of Energy and Chemical Engineering) and Eun Kwang Lee (Ph.D, School of Energy and Chemical Engineering) of UNIST. It also has been co-organized by Prof. Jong-Beom Baek (School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, UNIST), Prof. Myoung Soo Lah (School of Natural Science, UNIST), Prof. Noejung Park (School of Natural Science, UNIST), Prof. Hyung-Joon Shin (School of Materials Science and Engineering, UNIST), and Prof. Joon Hak Oh (School of Chemical Engineering, POSTECH).
According to the research team, “This synthetic methodology could serve as a straightforward way for the design and synthesis of other new 2D layered materials with many potential applications.”
The figure above shows a schematic representation of graphene (a) and 2D PANI formation (b). The 2D PANI framework consists of six nitrogen atoms that periodically surround a phenyl ring.
In the study, the team demonstrated a new synthetic protocol for 2D PANI, which can be produced by direct pyrolysis of organic HAB single crystals and has an empirical formula of C3N (three sp2 C atoms sharing a tertiary N) at basal area.
“The structure of 2D PANI is quite is similar to graphene,” says Prof. Baek. “However, because it contains uniformly distributed nitrogen atoms for multifunctionality, we expect that 2D PANI has strong potential, from wet chemistry to device applications, beyond graphene and its linear analog.”
This work has been supported by the Creative Research Initiative, BK21 Plus, and Mid-Career Researcher programs through the National Research Foundation of Korea.
Journal Reference
Javeed Mahmooda, Eun Kwang Lee, Minbok Jung, Dongbin Shin, Hyun-Jung Choi, Jeong-Min Seo, Sun-Min Jung, Dongwook Kim, Feng Li, Myoung Soo Lah, Noejung Park, Hyung-Joon Shin, Joon Hak Oh, and Jong-Beom Baek. “Two-dimensional Polyaniline (C3N) from Carbonized Organic Single Crystals in Solid State”, PNAS, (2016).
