Electrochemical Characterization of Conducting Polymer Films
Ryan Jensen
Former Undergraduate Student in Chemical Engineering
Conducting polymers are conjugated, robust materials with interesting electrical and optical properties. The properties and stability of these conducting polymers are highly dependent on the speed and reversibility of their charging and discharging processes. The charging and discharging of the polymer films involves the mass transport of counter ions. Electrochemical capacitors made from conducting polymers have been fabricated in laboratories and characterized using well-defined techniques such as chronopotentiometry, chronoamperometry, cyclic voltammetry, and impedance spectroscopy [1]. It has also been shown that the charge/discharge kinetics for a conducting polymer capacitor were significantly enhanced when the capacitor contained a network of ionic channels [2].
SEM of etched templated polypyrrole film.
The current system used includes the synthesis of mesostructured conducting polymers using gravitationally settled colloidal crystals as templates (figure 1). Once the polymer film has been formed,
the film is tested using cyclic voltammetry, chronamperometry, and chronopotentiometry to determine the kinetics of the polymer charging/discharging. Similar tests are performed on a control untemplated sample to determine the differences between templated and untemplated behaviors.
References:
1. Rudge, A., Davey, J., Raistrick, I., Gottesfeld, S., Ferraris, J.P. J. Pow. Sour., 47, 89-107 (1994).
2. Ghosh, S., Inganas, O. Adv. Mater. 11, 1214-1218 (1999)
Professor Paul Braun • Phone: +1.217.244.7293 • Fax: +1.217.333.2736 • Email: pbraun@illinois.edu
Department of Materials Science and Engineering • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign