PROPERTIES OF CHEMICALLY PREPARED POLYPYRROLE WITH AN AQUEOUS-SOLUTION CONTAINING FE-2(SO4)(3), A SULFONIC SURFACTANT AND A PHENOL DERIVATIVE

This paper describes chemically prepared polypyrrole (PPy) with an aqu eous solution containing Fe-2(SO4)(3) as an oxidant. PPy having enhanc ed conductivity and environmental stability was obtained under the coe xistence of a sulfonic surfactant and a phenol derivative with an elec tron-withdrawing group. The effect of the sulfonic surfactant was ascr ibed to a large-sized sulfonic anion being selectively incorporated in to PPy as dopant, because an increase in the yield of PPy depended on the concentration of the surfactant. For PPy synthesized with a soluti on containing p-nitrophenol (pNPh), a clear increase in the doping rat io was recognized from elemental analysis. Moreover, the conductivity of PPy increased with increasing strength of the electron-withdrawing force of the substituent. The electron-withdrawing substituent of the phenol derivative seems to prevent undesirable side reactions so as to improve the regularity of the PPy backbone. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.