Fabrication and electrochemical instrumentation of redox‐active nanofiber mat for polyaniline incorporated with poly(imide sulfonate)

Abstract

In this study, we demonstrate the fabrication of an electrochemically active nanofiber mat that is a composite of high-performance poly(imide sulfonate) (PIS) and polyaniline (PANI). First, a nonconductive nanofiber mat comprising nanofibers having diameters of ca. 300 nm was fabricated by the electrospinning of ionomeric PIS in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF). Then, the nanofibers were modified using PANI, which was synthesized by the oxidative polymerization of aniline, yielding an electrochemically active nanofiber mat having a diameter of ca. 350 nm. It was confirmed that PANI was successfully incorporated onto the PIS nanofiber mats by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Subsequently, we conducted electrochemical measurements of the PANI-modified nanofiber mats using a tailor-made attachment in which the working electrode gently comes in contact with the nanofiber mat surface. This attachment was observed to be widely useful in the cyclic voltammetry measurements related to redox-active nanofibers. These observations are expected to contribute to the advancements in application development of the electrochemically active nanofiber mats.