Continuous and Patterned Conducting Polymer Coatings on Diverse Substrates: Rapid Fabrication by Oxidant-Intermediated Surface Polymerization and Application in Flexible Devices

Abstract

Conducting polymer coatings and patterns are the most important forms of these materials for many practical applications, but a simple and efficient approach to these forms remains challenging. Herein, we report a universal oxidant-intermediated surface polymerization (OISP) for the fabrication of conducting polymer coatings and patterns on various substrates. A coating or pattern composed of densely packed colloidal V 2 O 5 •nH 2 O nanowires is deposited on the substrate via spin coating, dip coating, or printing, which is converted into a conducting polymer one after in situ oxidation polymerization. The polymerization occurs selectively on the V 2 O 5 •nH 2 O coatings, and high-quality polypyrrole, polyaniline, and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) coatings and patterns on planar and curved polymeric, metallic, and ceramic substrates are obtained in a fast reaction rate similar to the electrochemical polymerization. The mechanistic study reveals that the method relies on the excellent processability and formability of V 2 O 5 •nH 2 O nanowires, which is further explained by their large aspect ratio and surface activity. A flexible gas sensor array comprising three individual sensors made of different conducting polymers is fabricated using oxidant-intermediated surface polymerization, and it is successfully used to distinguish various analyte vapors. The method developed here will provide a powerful tool for the fabrication of conducting polymer-based devices.

Polyaniline-Based Infrared Dynamic Patterned Encoder with Multiple Thermal Radiation Characteristics

“…First, the V 2 O 5 film was evaporated on the substrate by the electron-beam evaporation method. Then, the V 2 O 5 film was directly dipped into the polymerization solution, where abundant monomers can be adsorbed on the surface of V 2 O 5 and polymerized to form the PANI molecule chains. − It can be clearly seen that the V 2 O 5 films patterned with different thicknesses transform into the PANI film while maintaining all patterned shapes. More importantly, this facile method possesses excellent potential to achieve the preparation of patterned PANI films.…”

“…Recently, divanadium pentoxide (V 2 O 5 ) gradually entered people’s field of vision as an oxidant because V 2 O 5 possesses high oxidation potential ( E o ) values of up to 0.96 V in an acidic environment and can be used as the oxidant to drive the chemical polymerization of aniline monomers. For example, pioneering work introduced by He et al achieved the rapid fabrication of patterned conducting polymer coatings, which involved two steps: preparation of the V 2 O 5 film and in situ polymerization in an aniline monomer solution . However, the preparation method of the V 2 O 5 dispersions was relatively complex, and the fabrication period was long, up to 3 months.…”

“…19,20 Among them, it is worth mentioning that PANI, as a typical conducting polymer, has the significant advantages mentioned above. 21 Conventional fabrication of the PANI film is the in situ electrochemical polymerization method, 22 which can directly synthesize high-quality PANI on conductive substrates. Nevertheless, it is challenging to implement the patterns in the electrochemical-method-based PANI film, which is not suitable for IR-DPE.…”

“…Nevertheless, it is challenging to implement the patterns in the electrochemical-method-based PANI film, which is not suitable for IR-DPE. Therefore, chemical polymerization is the most suitable method for this purpose …”

Recent progress in the fabrication of flexible materials for wearable sensors

“…The preparation of conductive polymer films and patterns is limited by the high substrate requirements, poor spatial resolution, and poor controllability of in situ polymerization deposition. He, 55 Zhao, 56 Xu, 57 Ji, 58 and Wu 59 have designed and fabricated various kinds of thin films that have promoted the acquisition of signals and the development of wearable sensors. Guan et al assembled rubber semiconductors into independent two-phase composite nanofilms based on the air/water interface assembly method.…”