Covalent grafting of polyaniline onto aniline-terminated porous silicon

Abstract This paper deals with the preparation of polyaniline (PANi) covalently grafted onto aniline-terminated porous silicon (PSi) substrate. Aniline-terminated PSi surface was obtained in a two-steps procedure. First, oxidized PSi surface was reacted with 3-bromopropyltrichlorosilane to yield a brominated surface. Aniline-terminated PSi surface was realized by reacting brominated PSi layer with aniline molecules at 60 °C for 24 h. The aniline moieties anchored onto the PSi surface were used as reactive sites for graft polymerization of aniline monomer. The composition and morphology of the resulting surfaces were examined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Furthermore, the optical properties of all functionalized materials involved in the synthesis protocol were characterized using photoluminescence (PL).