Oligomer-assisted synthesis of chiral polyaniline nanofibers.

We report here a novel approach to synthesize chiral PANI nanofibers in an aqueous solution. This new approach requires the following conditions: (1) Polymerization was carried out in concentrated camphor sulfonic acid solutions. (2) Aniline oligomers were used to accelerate the polymerization reaction. (3) Ammonium persulfate (oxidant) was added incrementally to the aniline solution. The high anisotropy factor of these PANI nanofibers is likely due to the "autocatalytic effect" resulting from lower oxidation potentials of aniline oligomers. Our chemical synthesis of the chiral PANI nanofibers is enantioselective and, under the optimized conditions, has an anisotropy factor (g = Deltaepsilon/epsilon) of 2.3 x 10-2.