GENERAL ⎜ ARTICLE

Conducting Polymers
From a Laboratory Curiosity to the Market Place

S Ramakrishnan

S Ramakrishnan is a Polymers that exhibit high electrical conductivity have

faculty member in the successfully been synthesized in the last few decades.
Department of Inorganic The early problems associated with the stability and
and Physical Chemistry,
at the Indian Institute of
solubility of such conducting polymers have largely been
Science, Bangalore. overcome using chemical intuition and experimenta-
tion. A fairly wide range of interesting applications based
on these polymers is emerging; some of these are
highlighted in this article.

Introduction

Polymers, by virtue of their light weight and greater ease of

fabrication, have replaced and are continuing to replace
metals in several areas of applications; as often remarked –
‘from buckets to rockets’. Polymers have traditionally been
considered good electrical insulators and a variety of their
applications have relied on this insulating property.
However, for more than a decade now, researchers have
shown that certain class of polymers which are conjugated
(those that possess an extended π-conjugation along the
polymer backbone), exhibit semiconducting behavior. The
1
Doping is a process by which
discovery of doping 1 led to a further dramatic increase in
the polymer is either oxidized
or reduced to create charge the conductivity of such conjugated polymers to values as
carriers. high as 10 5 S/cm (compare copper σ rt=106 S/cm) 2.

The chemical origins of such a remarkable difference in the

2
S/cm stands for Siemens/ material properties between various types of polymers can be
centimeter, a unit of conduc- readily rationalized. Traditional polymers, such as polyethyl-
tivity. Other units such as mho/
ene or polypropylene, are made up of essentially σ-bonds and
cm is also often used, where
mho stands for Ω –1 ; Ω (ohm) hence a charge once created on any given atom on the polymer
being the unit of resistance. chain is not mobile. The presence of an extended π - conjuga-

48 RESONANCE ⎜ November 1997

 GENERAL ⎜ ARTICLE

tion in polymers, however, confers the required mobility to Polymers, by virtue

charges that are created on the polymer backbone (by the pro- of their light weight
cess of doping) and make them electrically conducting. One and greater ease of
problem is that, due to the presence of this extended conjuga- fabrication, have
tion along the polymer backbone, the chains are rigid and replaced and are
possess strong interchain interactions resulting in insoluble continuing to
and infusible materials. These conjugated polymers, hence, replace metals in
lacked one of the most important and useful properties of several areas of
polymers, namely their ease of processability. More recently, applications.
however, it was demonstrated that when lateral substituents
were introduced, even conjugated polymers can be made soluble
(hence, processable) without significant loss in their conduc-
tivity. One other problem that plagued this field from its in-
ception, is the inherent instability of these polymers (espe-
cially, in the doped form) to ambient conditions. Today, con-
ducting polymers that are stable even in the doped form have
been prepared. We shall highlight some specific examples of
such systems and discuss some of their potential applications.

Examples of Conducting Polymers

Polyacetylene, in view of possessing the simplest molecular

framework, has attracted the most attention, especially of physi-
cists, with an emphasis on understanding the mechanism of
conduction (see Box 1). However, its insolubility, infusibility
and poor environmental stability has rendered it rather unat-
tractive for technological applications. The technologically rel-
evant front runners belong to essentially four families:
polyaniline (PAn), polypyrroles (PPy), polythiophenes (PT)
and polyphenylene vinylenes (PPV). Polyaniline is rather
unique as it is the only polymer that can be doped by a protic
acid and can exist in different forms depending upon the pH of
the medium. (see Box 2). While polyaniline is soluble in the
neutral emeraldine form in highly polar aprotic solvents like
N-methyl pyrrolidone (NMP), all other polymers are insoluble.
However, as mentioned earlier, laterally substituted deriva-

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 GENERAL ⎜ ARTICLE

Box 1. The first observation of the shiny lustrous polyacetylene film.

The search for conducting polymers, incidentally, goes back to the days of Natta (of the Ziegler-Natta
catalysts fame), who polymerized acetylene gas using his newly developed catalyst, that revolutionized
the plastics industry by providing a route to polypropylene. (Zeigler and Natta jointly won the Nobel Prize
in chemistry in 1963 for their discovery.) What he obtained from his acetylene polymerization, however, was
a black powder which looked much like charcoal. With the anticipation that such conjugated structures
would exhibit electronic conductivity, their conductivities (of compressed pellets) were indeed measured
by others, and were found to be fairly low; they were at best semiconducting (in the 10–7 S/cm range).
The finding in the mid seventies, by Shirakawa and his colleagues in Japan (believed to be serendipitous),
that polyacetylene can be prepared as shiny metallic films (these films, in fact, look almost exactly like
aluminium foil) when a thin film of ‘soluble’ Ziegler-Natta catalyst solution (as it drained along the reactor
vessel at –78o C ) was allowed to come in contact with acetylene gas, spurred some activity in this area
after a lean period of about two decades. The major resurgence of research activity, of course, had to
wait another couple of years for a trans-pacific collaboration between Shirakawa and MacDiarmid (from
the USA), when it was discovered that the conductivity of these polyacetylene films can be increased by
almost 10 orders of magnitude from 10–7 to 103 S/cm by a process they termed as ‘doping’, paralleling
the terminology used in semiconductor physics. One among the many ways that scientific discoveries are
made.

tives of the remaining three classes are soluble in pristine form

and are solution processable. A typical example of a laterally
substituted conjugated polymer which has been extensively
investigated is poly(3-hexyl thiophene) (P3-HT) (see Box 3).

PAn, PPy and PT can be prepared either by chemical or elec-

trochemical oxidation, the latter approach being often pre-
ferred as they result in polymeric films deposited on the anode
surface, which can be removed to give free-standing films. The
electrochemical method, in addition, may also be well suited
for fabrication of microelectronic devices in which polymer
films are directly deposited on to metal contacts. Although
chemical oxidation yields powders, the reaction when done in
the presence of surfactants, in some cases, permits the prepara-
tion of emulsions, which upon drying form coherent films. In
the case of the substituted derivatives, however, the chemical
method is often preferred, as the resulting polymers are soluble,
and hence can be purified and solution processed. (Box 4 ex-

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 GENERAL ⎜ ARTICLE

Box 2. The Special Case of Polyaniline.

Polyaniline has a rather unique structure, containing an alternating arrangement of benzene rings and
nitrogen atoms. The nitrogen atoms can exist either as an imine (in an sp2 hybridized state) or an amine
(sp3 hybridized). Depending on the relative composition of these two states of nitrogen, and further on
whether they are in their quartenized state or not, various forms of polyaniline can result. The structures
of these forms can be best represented by choosing a minimum of four repeat units, as shown below.

Attributes
H
N N N N
H H H n
Pale brown, insulating
Leucoemeraldine

H Blue, insulating
N N N N
H n

Emeraldine
X- X- Green, partially oxidi-
H + +
N N N N zed conducting form
H H H n

Protonated Emeraldine

N N N N Black, insulating
n
Pernigraniline

The only form that is conducting, among the four, is the green protonated emeraldine form, which has
both the oxidized iminium and reduced amine nitrogens, in equal amounts (i.e., it is half oxidized). Thus,
the blue insulating emeraldine form can be transformed into the conducting form by lowering the pH of
the medium and vice-versa. Another interesting feature of polyaniline is that, by use of an organic
counterion (X-), for instance, by using camphor sulfonic acid as the dopant acid, polyaniline can be retained
in solution even in the doped conducting form, further enhancing its versatility. The transport of charge in
these systems can be understood in a simple fashion, by causing the imine and amine nitrogens to
exchange places along the polymer backbone (in protonated emeraldine). Try and push arrows to cause
this change and observe that this process effectively causes the charges to move along the polymer
backbone!

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 GENERAL ⎜ ARTICLE

Box 3. Soluble Conducting Polymers.

Conjugated polymers, which are generally insoluble and infusible, can be made soluble by lateral
substitution. A few examples of such conjugated polymers are shown below.

S
n
S n
O

P-3HT MHPPV

The presence of the long alkyl chains destroys the symmetry and prevents the crystallization of the
conjugated polymers in the above two cases, thereby making them more readily soluble in common
organic solvents. In poly[2-methoxy-5-(2-ethylhexyloxy)phenylene vinylene], (MHPPV), the asymmetry is
even greater due to the presence of two kinds of substituents, one that is selected to be a branched alkyl
chain to magnify the effect even further.

plains the use of the chemical approach to prepare conducting

composites).

PPV has also attracted a lot of attention in recent years, due

to the availability of a synthetic route that gives a water
soluble polyelectrolyte precursor, which upon heating to
about 200 oC under vacuum gives the wholly conjugated
Scheme 1.
polymer (Scheme 1). By virtue of this soluble precursor

S + Cl -

n n

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 GENERAL ⎜ ARTICLE

Box 4. Conducting Fabric.

The chemical oxidation of pyrrole is often carried out by using ferric chloride, FeCl3 . It has been shown that
the growth of the polymer can be made to occur even at a liquid-liquid interface, such as one of water
and an organic solvent. Thus, in an unstirred system, when aqueous FeCl3 and chloroform solution of pyrrole
are brought into contact, it leads to the formation of a polypyrrole film at the interface. More interestingly,
when a fabric that is impregnated with an aqueous catalyst solution is brought into contact with pyrrole
vapour, a thin coating of polypyrrole is formed in the surface of the fibre - leading to the formation of a
conducting fabric. The unique electromagnetic shielding and microwave absorbing properties of such a
fabric are expected to find many interesting applications. Similarly, other materials such as paper,
microporous membranes etc., have also been coated with a conducting polymer using this chemical
oxidation route. It should be noted here that the oxidation potential of the monomer would be less than
that of the dimer, which would in turn be less than that of the polymer. Hence, the polymer generated by
this oxidative polymerization approach will be in the oxidized (doped) conducting form, which is also
generally true in the case of all oxidative polymerization approaches (both chemical and electrochemical)
for the preparation of conjugated polymers.

route, PPV films and fibres for a variety of applications are

accessible.

Table 1 shows the structures and characteristics of some of the

above mentioned conducting polymers.

Applications

Although several conducting polymers have been prepared, it

was soon realized that they cannot compete with metals in
traditional electrical applications, like wiring, transmission
cables etc. Researchers have, therefore, focussed on other appli-
cations that exploit the existence of extended conjugation in
these polymers. A few interesting possibilities are mentioned
One of the first
below. See Box 5 for a novel biomedical application.
applications of
Polymeric Batteries conducting
polymers was that
One of the first applications of conducting polymers, that was of light-weight
the focus of attention world-wide, was that of light-weight batteries.

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 GENERAL ⎜ ARTICLE

Structure Maximum
conductivity S/cm Stability Processability

Polyacetylene 1.5 x 105 Reacts with Film not

n
air soluble or
H H fusible
N N
Polypyrrole n 2000 Reasonably Insoluble and
stable infusible
S S
Polythiophene n 100 Stable Insoluble and
infusible

Polyaniline N N 10 Stable Soluble in

n
neutral form

Polyphenylene 1000 Stable Insoluble and

n
infusible

Polyphenylene- 1000 Stable Soluble

vinylene undoped precursor route
n form available

Table 1.
batteries. While a lot of the conjugated polymers were tried
most of them failed to exhibit the desired properties, specifically
with respect to stability. However, batteries made using either
polypyrrole or polyaniline as the positive electrode (cathode)
and lithium– aluminium alloy as the negative electrode (anode)
exhibited much more respectable properties. The electrolyte
in these cases were either LiClO4 or LiBF4 in propylene car-
bonate (a highly polar aprotic solvent, which is also fairly
resistant to oxidation). During the battery discharge, electrons
move from the lithium alloy (which gets oxidized) to the
polyaniline cathode (which gets reduced), as Li+ from the anode
and BF4– from the cathode enter the electrolyte.

One major drawback of this battery is that the energy

density or energy storage capacity is low and its recyclability
(charging–discharging cycles) is relatively poor. More
recently, however, some composites of an alkali metal alloy

54 RESONANCE ⎜ November 1997

 GENERAL ⎜ ARTICLE

and polyphenylene have been very effectively used as anode

materials in batteries that exhibit much higher energy
densities, of around 65mWH/g (compare with standard
nickel–cadmium batteries which have about 39mWH/g).
In these cases, the conducting polymer serves as a binder for
the alkali metal alloy, forming a multiply connected
electronically and ionically conductive network within
which the alloy particles are held. The mixed ionic and
electronic conductivity of the conducting polymer binder
allows the alloy particles to continue the electronic and
3
For a detailed article
ionic processes associated with the charge-discharge cycles,
describing the desirable char-
consequently extending the battery cycle life. Thus, the acteristics of batteries, see A K
prospect of a polymeric battery is still alive and is awaiting Shukla and P Vishnu Kamath in
further technological refinement. 3 Suggested Reading.

Electrochromic Displays

Electrochromic display is another interesting application

which utilizes the electrochemical doping and undoping of
conducting polymers. The basic idea, in such devices, is to
effect a significant change in the colour (both the wave-
length of absorption and its intensity) upon application of
an electric potential. Depending on the conducting poly-
mer chosen, either the doped or undoped state can be essen-
tially colourless or intensely coloured. In general, the ab-
sorption of the doped state is dramatically red-shifted
(moves to longer wavelength) from that of the undoped
state. Because of their very high absorption coefficients (ca.
10 5 cm –1) in the visible range of the electromagnetic spec-
trum, only very thin films are required to provide display
devices with high contrast and a very broad viewing angle.
Polyaniline, polypyrrole, polythiophene and their deriva-
tives have been successfully used to prepare prototypes of
such display devices. However, for successful commercial
utilization of these materials in display devices, one impor-
tant aspect is again the cycle life, which should be > 10 7. A
maximum of about 10 6 cycles has been achieved using 50

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 GENERAL ⎜ ARTICLE

Emission of light nm thick polyaniline films, wherein the switching occurs

upon irradiation is between transparent yellow and green in less than 100ms.
termed as Thus, while these materials are yet to achieve the set target
photoluminescence, (in terms of their life cycle) for use as electrochromic dis-
while the emission plays, other interesting and innovative applications, such
on application of a as electrochromic windows and other applications in the
voltage is termed automotive industry are being actively pursued. Electro-
as electro- chromic windows, for instance, are windows in buildings/
luminescence. automobiles which can be made to go from low transmit-
ting (during the day) to high transmitting (during the
night); the switching in such systems occurs upon applica-
tion of an electric potential.

Light Emitting Diodes

Other exciting phenomena, that have caught the imagination

of both scientists and technologists alike, are the phenomena of
photoluminescence and electroluminescence in conjugated
polymers. Emission of light upon irradiation is termed as
photoluminescence, while the emission on application of a
voltage is termed electroluminescence. Light emitting diode is
an example of utilization of the latter phenomenon. It was
recently demonstrated that PPV films can be used as the emis-
sive layer in electroluminescent devices. Structures for elec-
troluminescent devices are fabricated with the polymer film
formed on a bottom electrode, which is deposited on a suitable
substrate (such as glass), and the top electrode is deposited on
the fully converted PPV film (i.e. after thermal elimination of
the precursor) ( Scheme 2). Electrode materials are chosen with
a low work function4 for use as negative, electron-injecting
4
Work function of a metal may
contact, and with a high work function as the positive hole-
be defined as the minimum injecting contact. At least one of these layers must be semi-
energy required to eject an transparent for light emission normal to the plane of the device.
electron from it. In chemical
Both indium-tin oxide and thin aluminium films (7-15 nm)
terminology, this is similar (al-
though not the same) to the
have been used as the transparent electrode. For polymer films,
oxidation potential of the of about 100 nm, the forward voltages were as low as 10 V.
metal. Further improvements, using soluble PPV derivatives such as

56 RESONANCE ⎜ November 1997

 GENERAL ⎜ ARTICLE

Scheme 2. A typical LED

device construction.

2,5-dialkoxy PPV’s and lower work function metals, particu-

larly calcium, as the electron-injecting contact layer, have re-
sulted in a further drop in forward voltage to about 5 V, and an
increase in the efficiency to about 1% (photons per electron
injected). These devices are believed to operate by double charge
injection of electrons and holes from the negative and positive

Box 5. Biosensors

Conducting polymers have also touched the arena of biomedical applications. One such application is the
fabrication of a glucose biosensor. Such a device can not only sense the presence of glucose but can also
estimate its concentration. The principle involves immobilization of an enzyme and a suitable mediator on
a conducting polymer matrix, that is coated on to a suitable sensor chip. Polypyrrole and polyaniline based
sensors have been fabricated, both of which are of the amperometric type (based on the measurement
of the steady state current at a fixed applied potential). One such sensor, is based upon electrochemically
polymerized polypyrrole on an electrode from a solution which contains both glucose oxidase (a flavin-
containing enzyme that oxidizes glucose) and ferrocene monocarboxylic acid (which is the electron transfer
mediator that shuttles electrons from the redox center of the enzyme to the surface of the sensing electrode).
In such a device, the amount of charge transferred (i.e., the current passed) is proportional to the
concentration of glucose present in the solution. The specificity of the enzyme (which oxidizes only glucose)
imparts to the device a very important characteristic, namely its ability to sense glucose even in the presence
of several other components (as would be the case in, say, blood or urine). Prototypes of such
microamperometric glucose and galactose biosensors based on a silicon chip employing polypyrrole have
in fact been developed by several companies. These types of sensors are likely to soon find their way into
analytical clinical laboratories for glucose estimation, for on-line supervision of diabetic patients etc.

Rupali Gangopadhyay
Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Calcutta 700 064.

RESONANCE ⎜ November 1997 57

 GENERAL ⎜ ARTICLE

electrodes, respectively. These singly charged excitations com-

bine to form excitons which can then decay by photoemission.
Changing the band-gap of these conjugated polymers, by ap-
propriate chemical modification, can result in a change in the
wavelength of the photoemission: red-shifted upon reduction
of band-gap and blue-shifted upon increasing the band-gap.
Enhancement of the photoemission efficiency and further low-
ering of forward operating voltage are two of the primary areas
of current activity that is expected to lead to improved devices
of greater technological relevance.

Conclusions

Conducting polymers have, thus, come a long way from purely

laboratory curiosity to a class of materials that can find end use
in a wide variety of commercial products, ranging from batter-
ies to biosensors. Such a development is a classic example that
serves to illustrate the wide range of expertise, starting from
chemists, physicists, biologists and technologists, that is re-
quired to take some invention in the laboratory to the market
place.

Suggested Reading

Address for Correspondence  T Skotheim. Handbook of Conducting Polymers Vol I & II. Marcel
S Ramakrishnan Dekker. New York, 1986.
Department of Inorganic and  W R Salaneck, D T Clark and E J Samuelsen. Science and Applications
Physical Chemistry of Conducting Polymers. Published by Adam Hilger. Bristol, 1991.
Indian Institute of Science  J A Chilton and M T Goosey. Special Polymers for Electronics and
Bangalore 560 012, India. Optoelectronics. Chapter 1. Chapman & Hall. London, 1995.
 A K Shukla and P Vishnu Kamath. Resonance. Vol. 1. June, 1996.

CERF's Comments on Modern Science

• If it's incomprehensible, it's
mathematics.
• If it doesn't make sense, it's either
economics or psychology.

58 RESONANCE ⎜ November 1997