Just like other conducting polymers, polyanilines are useful for many important electric and electrooptical applications. A self-doped polyaniline that contains a stable/immobile, covalently bonded acid moiety on the backbone is highly desired, due to their greater resistances to solvent-washing, rain-flushing, and thermal evaporation.The present invention discloses a new type of thermally stable self-doped functionalized polyanilines that are thermally much more stable than the previously reported sulfonated-polyaniline, which was believed to be the most thermally stable self-doped polyaniline known in the art. The present invention also discloses a new and effective method for making this new type of thermally stable self-doped functionalized polyanilines.