Application of Conductive Polymers in Electrochemistry
Ali A. Ensafi, Kimia Zarean Mousaabadi, Reyhaneh Fazel-Zarandi
Abstract
It is commonly believed that polymers are electrical insulators. However, the emergence of conducting polymers has challenged this traditional belief, and these materials have earned significant attention in recent years. The collaborative discovery of conductive polymers by Alan J. Heeger, Alan MacDiarmid, and Hideki Shirakawa won them the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000. As conjugated carbon chains, conducting polymers are formed by the highly populated delocalized electronic system that is generated by π bonds in their structure. The optical and electrical behavior of conducting polymers are typically similar to that of semiconductors; however, conjugated polymers, unlike semiconductors, are not solids with atomic structure and are preferably shaped as an amorphous polymeric configuration. Therefore, processes, such as charge transfer in conducting polymers, can be entirely unrelated to semiconductors depending on the nature of the materials. A range of mechanisms can be active depending on the material processing. Conducting polymers have numerous promising applications in different analytical chemistry branches, including electrochemistry, spectroscopy, separation, and mass spectroscopy. Common conducting polymers include polyacetylene, polypyrrole, polyaniline, poly(para-phenylene), polythiophene, poly(p-phenylene vinylene), poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene), polyacetylene, poly(p-phenylene sulfide), and polyfuran have been used widely. In this chapter, the history and application of conducting polymers in electrochemistry will be briefly discussed.