Seo Seogjae, Kim Jeonghun, Kim Byeonggwan, Vinu Ajayan, Kim Eunkyoung
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Yonsei University, 262 Seongsanno, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 120-749, Korea.
J Nanosci Nanotechnol. 2011 May;11(5):4567-72. doi: 10.1166/jnn.2011.3645.
Nanostructured PEDOT was synthesized using mesoporous silica as a nano-template. The polymerization of thiophene monomers was performed with an oxidant and mesoporous silica nanoparticles. The silica particles took essential role in absorbing monomers and oxidant molecules, and growth of polymers inside their pores. As prepared polymer/silica composite was treated with HF solution to remove silica template to result in 1D wire structure and mesh type porous 3D structures from SBA-15 and KIT-6 template, respectively. The average size of the poly(thiophene) wires was 10 15 nm, which was matched well to the pores size of the silica templates, as determined from an electron microscopy. At optimized condition, the room temperature electrical conductivities of the PEDOT grown from SBA-15 and KIT-6 template were similar as 1.1 and 1.0 S/cm, respectively. However, the evolution of the PEDOT conductivity versus temperature was different depending on the templates. These results gave a unique chance to tailor made 3 dimensional structure as well as properties of conductive polymer.
