Study of structural and electrochemomechanical properties of aniline/2 metoxianiline copolymers

W. ARMADA; G. CONTRAFATTI; L. LIZARRAGA; E.M. ANDRADE; F.V. MOLINA

Oleron

Conferencia; 2nd International conference on the Electrochemical Promotion of Catalysis and its Applications (EPOCAP); 2008

Copolymers of aniline (ANI) and 2-methoxyaniline (MOA) were electrosynthesized and characterized by elemental analysis, IR spectroscopy, and direct laser desorption ionization. The electrochemomechanical behaviour was studied through direct microscopical observation of the volume changes caused by redox switching in sulphuric and perchloric acid media in the first redox step, when going from the fully reduced form, leucoemeraldine, to the intermediately oxidized one, emeraldine. It was found that the freshly electropolymerized films had, for the same voltammetric charge, smaller volume as the MOA/ANI ratio increased. Volume changes observed during the first cycle were strongly dependent on the polymer composition. The ANI-MOA copolymers, for most of the composition range, did not show marked differences compared with poly(aniline), thus being materials with similar mechanic characteristics to this homopolymer but being more processable.