LAUSR

Waterborne polyurethane (WPU) has been intensively utilized as host materials for intrinsic conducting polymers. However, the stability and compatibility between polyaniline (PANI) and WPU remain a challenge for their composites. In this research, anionic–nonionic sulfonated waterborne polyurethane (SWPU) is adopted as matrix to prepare nanosized PANI-g-SWPU dispersions through chemical graft polymerization method, and the stability mechanism is systematically investigated. The PANI-g-SWPU dispersion is endowed with much higher stability and no PANI precipitation is detected after storage for 1 year when the PEG molecular weight is 1000 and R value is 1.2. The surface resistivity reaches the minimum when the graft time is 2.5 h, pH value is 2, n(APS)/n(aniline) is 1, and the aniline content is 20 wt %. And the resistivity of the coated paper reaches 1.39 Ω cm, indicating that the as-prepared PANI-g-SWPU dispersion can be directly used as the antistatic coatings, which is also suitable for large scalable production. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017, 134, 45412.