Electrocatalytic properties of the ion beam irradiated conducting polypyrrole

The electrocatalytic property of the conducting polypyrrole (PPy) films dop ed with palladium chloride and irradiated with heavy ion beams was studied for methanol oxidation. The PPy films were elrctropolymerized on gold film coated glass plate electrodes: subsequently doped with different amounts of PdCl2 and then irradiated with 120 MeV, Au+ ions at a dose of 10(12) ions/ cm(2). The cyclic voltammograms (CVs) of these samples for methanol oxidati on in 0.1 M HClO4 showed a four times increase in the anodic current as com pared to the un-irradiated ones. These improvements in the electrocatalytic activity by ion beam irradiation could be associated with better complex f ormation between the dopant and conducting polymer matrix which was confirm ed by the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) studies. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.