Functionalization of conductive polymers through covalent post-modification

S. BONGIOVANNI ABEL; E. FRONTERA; D. ACEVEDO; C.A. BARBERO

POLYMERS

MDPI

Año: 2022 vol. 15 p. 1 - 45

Organic chemical reactions have been used to functionalize preformed conducting polymers(CPs). The extensive work performed on polyaniline (PANI), polypyrrole (PPy), and polythiophene(PT) is described together with the more limited work on other CPs. Two approacheshave been taken for the functionalization: (i) direct reactions on the CP chains and (ii) reactionwith substituted CPs bearing reactive groups (e.g., ester). Electrophilic aromatic substitution, SEAr,is directly made on the non-conductive (reduced form) of the CPs. In PANI and PPy, the N-H canbe electrophilically substituted. The nitrogen nucleophile could produce nucleophilic substitutions(SN) on alkyl or acyl groups. Another direct reaction is the nucleophilic conjugate addition on theoxidized form of the polymer (PANI, PPy or PT). In the case of PT, the main functionalizationmethod was indirect, and the linking of functional groups via attachment to reactive groups wasalready present in the monomer. The same is the case for most other conducting polymers, such aspoly(fluorene). The target properties which are improved by the functionalization of the differentpolymers is also discussed.