Polymer Bulletin, Vol.75, No.9, 4291-4309, 2018
Synthesis and characterization of poly(thiophene-co-pyrrole) conducting copolymer nanoparticles via chemical oxidative polymerization
Thiophene and pyrrole copolymer was synthesized by chemical oxidation in the presence of anhydrous FeCl3 in acetonitrile at 0 A degrees C. Characterizations of the obtained copolymers were performed by cyclic voltammetry (CV), UV-Vis spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetry analysis (TGA). By using chemical oxidative method and based on the results, the copolymer (P(Th-co-Py)) formation was confirmed without any traces for the homopolymers formation. At the undoped state of the copolymer, the pi-pi* transition absorption peak was located at 629 nm and the optical band gap (E (g)) was calculated as 1.97 eV. The effect of the copolymerization time and the comonomers molar ratio on the chemical and physical properties of the P(Th-co-Py) was investigated. The optimum time for copolymerization was evaluated as 6 h and mass specific capacitance (C (ms)) for P(Th-co-Py) with comonomer ratio of 60Th/40Py was obtained to be 73.7 F/g, falling in the range of supercapacitance.