Full electrochemical synthesis of conducting polymer films chemically grafted to conducting surfaces

This paper reports on the full electrochemical synthesis of electrically conducting polymers chemically grafted to conducting surfaces (e.g., glassy carbon, stainless steel, nickel, gold). It is based on new functional acrylate monomers, i.e., 3-(2-acryloyloxyethyl)thiophene and N-(2-acryloyloxyethyl)pyrrole, whose the synthesis is reported in this work. The polymerization process consists of two electrochemical steps. The first one is the cathodic electrografting of polyacrylate chains bearing a precursor of the conducting polymer in the ester group, either thiophene or pyrrole. In the second step, this precursor is polymerized under anodic polarization, in the presence or not of additional unsubstituted monomer in the electrochemical bath. Cyclic voltammetry was used to confirm that the two-component film is conducting and electrochemically active (reversible doping and dedoping). The chemical composition and the microscopic morphology of these composites were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy, respectively.