An electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance study on growth of and ion transport in electrochemically polymerized poly(paraphenylene vinylene)

The electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance technique has been used to study in situ the mass changes that take place during electrochemical growt h and redox cycling of the conducting polymer poly(p-phenylenevinylene) (PP V). The polymer material has been grown onto platinum in dimethylformamide using tetraethylammonium tosylate (TOS) or tetraethylammonium tetrafluorobo rate (BF4) as electrolyte salts. The mass change during polymerization of P PV films under various monomer concentrations was studied and also the effe ct of water added to the polymerization solution. The results show that the polymerization reaction was enhanced when 1. water was added to the polymerization solution, 2. the concentration of monomer material was increased, and 3. when the polymerization was done in presence of a medium-sized anion. When the PPV films were grown with a medium-sized anion (TOS-), cations wer e inserted and removed during the redox process in order to compensate for the change in charge of the PPV film, The films prepared in presence of a s mall anion (BF4-) showed anion motion during the redox cycling. (C) 1999 El sevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.