Electrochemical Polymerization of 3-Methoxyaniline and Characterization of the Obtained Polymer

Abstract

Electropolymerization of 3-methoxyaniline on platinum electrode in acid medium was carried out under different reaction conditions such as temperature, current density, hydrochloric acid, and monomer concentrations with duration time. The initial rate of the electropolymerization reaction is small and the orders are found to be 0.99, 0.98, and 0.97 with respect to current density, acid, and monomer concentrations, respectively. The apparent activation energy (Ea) is found to be 59.673KJ mol 1. The rate law is RP ¼ K2[D] 0.99 [HCl] 0.98 [M] 0.97. The obtained polymer films were characterized by 1H-NMR, elemental analysis, IR, and cyclic voltammetry. The mechanism of the electropolymerization reaction has also been discussed. The thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was used to confirm the proposed structure and determination of the number of water molecules in the polymeric chain unit. X-ray and scanning electron microscopic analysis were used to investigate the surface morphology.