Comparison of the thermally stable conducting polymers PEDOT, PANi, and PPy using sulfonated poly(imide) templates

• Published in: Polymer (Guilford) 2010-09, Vol.51 (20), p.4472-4476
• Main Authors: Somboonsub, Bongkoch, Srisuwan, Suttisak, Invernale, Michael A., Thongyai, Supakanok, Praserthdam, Piyasan, Scola, Daniel A., Sotzing, Gregory A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Annealing; Applied sciences; Conducting polymers; Dispersions; Exact sciences and technology; Organic polymers; Physicochemistry of polymers; Polymerization; Polymers with particular properties; Preparation, kinetics, thermodynamics, mechanism and catalysts; Reaction time; Template polymerization; Thermal stability
• ISSN: 0032-3861; 1873-2291
• DOI: 10.1016/j.polymer.2010.08.008

We showed that it is possible to use sulfonated poly(amic acid)s (SPAA) to template polymerize 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) to PEDOT, resulting in an aqueous dispersion of conducting polymer. This study compares PEDOT with poly(aniline) (PANi) and poly(pyrrole) PPy using the same and another, more rigid, poly(amic acid) template. A variety of system parameters, including reaction time, conductivity, and overall thermal stability, were noted to change systematically depending on the systems chosen. PANi-SPAA takes less than one tenth of the reaction time of PEDOT-SPAA (12 h versus 7 days), and results in higher conductivities at room temperature ( ca. 10 S/cm). However, it is not as thermally stable as the PEDOT-SPAA system; conductivity is not measureable after annealing at 300 °C. PPy-SPAA was found to be more thermally stable than PANi-SPAA (less mass lost at 300 °C), but it was still more conductive than un-doped PEDOT-SPAA by a factor of 1000 ( ca. 1.0 S/cm). [Display omitted]