Polymer, Vol.84, 99-106, 2016
Synthesis of polypyrrole microspheres by Streptomyces spp.
The present paper shows a green method for the formation of polypyrrole by two different MIUG 12p and MIUG 4.88 strains of Streptomyces spp. bacteria. According to our knowledge, such method has never been proposed before for pyrrole oxidation. For this experiment pyrrole monomer was added into bacterial medium after 6 days of incubation and after 4 days polypyrrole (PPy) based 10-25 mm microspheres has been observed in the medium around living cells, The microsphere diameter dependence on the bacterial strains was observed. The morphological characterization of the PPy microspheres was subsequently performed by optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The characterization of formed hollow microspheres confirmed that they consist of polypyrrole. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.