Acid-Assisted Polymerization of Semi-Conducting Polymers for Various Applications

Elena Tomšík
Lecture of the lecture cycle
19.9.2024 11:00, Lecture room A

There is a demand for a simple and reliable method for the synthesis of semiconducting polymers (SPs) with controllable morphologies and properties that reflect their applications in different devices. The following methods currently exist to prepare SPs: chemical oxidation polymerization, electrochemical polymerization, metal catalyzed coupling, solid-state polymerization, Lewis acid-assisted polymerization, photoinduced polymerization and oxidant-free acid polymerization at high temperature. These methods suffer from difficulty of separation of the polymer and the oxidants and leads to contamination of water. We present for the first time a simple method of SPs synthesis by acid-assisted polymerization without applying any oxidant and with the formation of stable suspension at room temperature with a yield of ~ 100%. The SP suspensions could be deposited on many desirable surfaces (by simple evaporation of the solvent) for various applications from sensors to pseudocapacitor. Moreover, we discovered that the self-polymerization method does not produce any byproducts, which makes the method environmentally friendly.

The lecture is presented in English