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a) b - École Polytechnique de Montréal

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a wi<strong>de</strong> range of conductivity in these conductive porous <strong>de</strong>vices. It also opens up the potential to<br />

<strong>de</strong>velop these <strong>de</strong>vices as load bearing sensors.<br />

5.5 Conclusions<br />

This paper reports on the preparation of a novel 3D porous polymeric conducting <strong>de</strong>vice (PPCD)<br />

<strong>de</strong>rived from multi-percolated polymer blend systems. The work has focused on the preparation<br />

of ultra low surface area porous substrates followed by the <strong>de</strong>position of polyaniline conductive<br />

polymer (PANI) on the internal porous surface using a layer-by-layer technique. In this way, the<br />

percolation threshold of PANI in this porous conductive <strong>de</strong>vice can be reduced to a value as low<br />

as 0.19%. Furthermore, <strong>de</strong>pending on the amount of PANI <strong>de</strong>posited, the electrical conductivity<br />

of the porous substrate can be controlled over several or<strong>de</strong>rs of magnitu<strong>de</strong> from 10 -15 S cm -1 to<br />

10 -3 S cm -1 .<br />

Ternary and quaternary multi-percolated(hierarchically or<strong>de</strong>red) systems comprised of high<strong>de</strong>nsity<br />

polyethylene (HDPE), polystyrene (PS), poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and<br />

poly(vinyli<strong>de</strong>ne fluori<strong>de</strong>) (PVDF) are melt-mixed and subsequently annealed in or<strong>de</strong>r to obtain<br />

large interconnected phases. Subsequent extraction of PS, PMMA and PVDF within that blend<br />

allows for the preparation of a fully interconnected porous HDPE substrate of ultra-low surface<br />

area and highly uniform sized channels. This provi<strong>de</strong>s an i<strong>de</strong>al substrate for subsequent<br />

polyaniline (PANI) addition. Using a layer-by-layer (LbL) approach, alternating poly(styrene<br />

sulfonate) (PSS)/PANI layers are <strong>de</strong>posited on the internal surface of the 3-dimensional porous<br />

polymer substrate. The PANI and sodium poly(styrene sulfonate) (NaPSS) both adopt an interdiffused<br />

network conformation on the surface. The sequential mass <strong>de</strong>position of PSS and PANI<br />

multilayers has been studied in <strong>de</strong>tail and an oscillating behavior is observed, due primarily to<br />

the diffusion of PSS chains both in and out of the multilayer structure. Salt in the <strong>de</strong>position<br />

solution highly affects the polyelectrolyte construction by allowing for a more uniform<br />

<strong>de</strong>position and more thickly <strong>de</strong>posited PSS/PANI layers. The mass <strong>de</strong>position growth for the<br />

PSS/PANI system in all cases is not linear. Conductivity measurements show that the<br />

conductivity of these samples increases from 10 -15 S cm -1 to 10 -5 S cm -1 as the number of<br />

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