Preparation of the thermally stable conducting polymer PEDOT – Sulfonated poly(imide)

• Published in: Polymer (Guilford) 2010-03, Vol.51 (6), p.1231-1236
• Main Authors: Somboonsub, Bongkoch, Invernale, Michael A., Thongyai, Supakanok, Praserthdam, Piyasan, Scola, Daniel A., Sotzing, Gregory A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Conducting polymers; Exact sciences and technology; Organic polymers; Physicochemistry of polymers; Polymers with particular properties; Preparation, kinetics, thermodynamics, mechanism and catalysts; Template polymerization; Thermal stability
• ISSN: 0032-3861; 1873-2291
• DOI: 10.1016/j.polymer.2010.01.048

We describe the template polymerization of EDOT with sulfonated poly(amic acid) (SPAA), resulting in a stable conducting polymer aqueous dispersion, PEDOT-SPAA, with particle size ca. 63 nm. In films of PEDOT-SPAA, the sulfonated poly(amic acid) template undergoes imidization within 10 min at temperatures greater than 150 °C, resulting in PEDOT-sulfonated poly(imide) (PEDOT-SPI) with 10-fold conductivity enhancement. This material is highly thermally stable as compared to PEDOT-PSS. Thermal stability is necessary for many processing applications of conducting polymers, including annealing for OPVs and melt-processing of polycarbonate for device encasement. Isothermal TGA experiments were run at 300 °C for PEDOT-PSS and PEDOT-SPAA and we found that PEDOT-SPAA had a smaller slope for degradation. Annealing of films at 300 °C for 10 min caused the conductivity of PEDOT-PSS films to be unmeasurable (