Reversible Alteration of Polyaniline Electrochemical Properties by Coupling with Diazonium Salts.

CAVALLO PABLO C; ACEVEDO DIEGO F; MIRAS MARIA C; BARBERO CESAR A

Niza

Encuentro; The 61st Annual Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry.; 2010

The International Society of Electrochemistry.

Polyaniline (PANI) films possess high chemical stability and electrical conductivity, together with interesting acid/based and redox properties associated with the chain heteroatom. Incorporation of covalently linked functional groups allows producing materials with novel properties. The usual way to produce functionalized polyaniline involves the synthesis of monomer, followed by homopolymerization or copolymerization. Another, less explored, route to produce materials with varying properties involves post modification of already synthesized, and well characterized, conducting polymers. Liu and Freund claimed that the nucleophilic substitution of PANI with benzenediazonium ions renders a non conducting polymer. On the other hand, we have shown that diazonium ions could react with polyanilines, by electrophilic substitution, to give soluble and electroactive polymers. In this paper we show that the added functionality can be removed by degradative reduction, restoring the electrochemical properties of the material.