Electrical Properties Of Electrospun Poly (Ethylene Oxide) - Polypyrrole Composite Fibers
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Electrical Properties Of Electrospun Poly (Ethylene Oxide) - Polypyrrole Composite Fibers. Bibekananda Sundaray, V.Subramanian, T S Natarajan* Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600 036, INDIA * Corresponding Author: [email protected] ABSTRACT Electrospinning is a simple method of obtaining polymer fibers with nanometer diameter. The increase in the ratio of surface area to volume in the case of such fibers, make them attractive in applications such as sensors, etc. It is difficult to electrospin Polypyrrole (PPy) directly to form fibers. Hence electrospinning is attempted with a composite formed with PPy and any other insulating polymer such as Polyethylene oxide (PEO), Polystyrene (PS), etc. The concentration of PPy can be varied to improve the electrical or sensing properties of the resulting composite. In the present report, the PEO-PPy composite fibers with different weight percentages (10% to 50% w/w) are prepared by electrospinning process. The fibers obtained are characterized using SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) and TEM (Transmission Electron Microscopy). I-V Characteristics are studied for single and multiple aligned fibers obtained on gold electrodes. The variation of electrical conductivity with different concentration of PPy is discussed. INTRODUCTION Conducting electroactive polymers (CEPs) are materials with great promise in many potential applications, which include sensors, electronic and electro-optical devices, batteries, electrode materials, etc. [1,2]. Polypyrrole (PPy) is one of the most widely investigated CEPs due to its good thermal and environmental stability and high electrical conductivity. The latter property can in principle, be modified by suitable doping [3]. With the recent advances in nano science and technology, much attention has been paid to the preparation and characterization of 1D nanomaterials. Because of the increase in the ratio of surface area to volume, the nanomaterials are expected to have better properties compared to the bulk. There are different methods by which one can prepare conducting fibers or nanowires. These are template synthesis, self-assembly, drawing, electrospining etc. Electrospinning is a method of producing polymer fibers with diameters in the nanometer ranges by the application of high electrostatic field [4-7]. The method is simple, inexpensive, electrostatic and non-mechanical. Many known polymers have been electrospun either from solution in a suitable solvent or from melt. This technique has attracted much attention in recent years due to the ease of preparation of nanometer diameter fibers. Conducting polymers such as Polyaniline(Pan), Polypyrrole (PPy), Polyphenylene vinylene (PPV) have been electrospun after blending with other insulating polymers[8-9]. Here, we report the preparation of electrospun composite fibers of conducting Polypyrrole blended with insulating polyethylene oxide (PEO). The diameter of the fibers are found to be in the range of 100nm –10 µm. The fibers are character
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