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a) b - École Polytechnique de Montréal

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chain provi<strong>de</strong>s the conductive path for the electrons. π-electrons are responsible for the unusual<br />

electronic properties of these polymers, such as low ionization potential, low energy optical<br />

transition, electron conductivity and high electron affinity.<br />

The conductivity of a polymer can be significantly increased by doping it with<br />

oxidative/reductive substituents or by donor/acceptor radicals. For example, Shirakawa et al.<br />

reported a conductivity increase of 9 to 13 or<strong>de</strong>rs of magnitu<strong>de</strong> for doped polyacetylene (PA).<br />

Doping inorganic materials such as silicon involves substitution of atoms and is completely<br />

different from doping organic polymers. Conductive polymers are doped with oxidizing or<br />

reducing agents and chemicals that remove electrons from or add electrons to the polymer. A<br />

simple explanation is that the oxidation or reduction changes the electronic structure of the<br />

polymer so that it can conduct electricity. The <strong>de</strong>gree of conductivity in the doping process is<br />

related to many factors, including the polymeric structure, <strong>de</strong>gree of doping, and type of dopant.<br />

The “doped” form of polyacetylene had a conductivity of 10 5 Siemens per meter, which was<br />

higher than that of any previously known polymer. As a comparison, silver and copper have<br />

conductivity of 10 8 S m –1 .<br />

One of the most important domains still at the foreground of research activity in electrochemistry<br />

is preparation, characterization and application of electrochemically active, electronically<br />

conducting polymeric systems. From a practical standpoint, the first generation of intrinsically<br />

conductive polymers did not achieve great commercial success. These polymers ten<strong>de</strong>d to be<br />

insoluble, unprocessable, and extremely sensitive to environmental conditions.<br />

The genesis of the field can be traced back to the mid 1970’s when polyacetylene was reportedly<br />

prepared by acci<strong>de</strong>nt by Shirakawa(Ito, Shirakawa, & Ikeda, 1996) as the first polymer capable<br />

of conducting electricity. Polythiazyl (SN)x discovered in 1975, was one of the pioneering<br />

conjugated polymers which showed conductivity around 0.29 K(Greene, Street, & Suter, 1975).<br />

Shirakawa et al.(Shirakawa, Louis, MacDiarmid, Chiang, & Heeger, 1977) in 1977 established<br />

the i<strong>de</strong>a of using polymers for electrical conducting goals when the iodine-doped transpolyacetylene,<br />

(CH)x, exhibited a conductivity of 10 3 S/cm. After the appearance of the first<br />

organic conductive materials, other conducting polymers were synthesized, such as polyaniline<br />

(PANI), polypyrrole (PPY), poly p-phenylene (PPP), polythiophene (PT), and polyfuran (PFU),<br />

which are shown in Figure 2-26. Researchers started to work in this area and could tune the<br />

57

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