Conducting polymer-hydrogel

Conducting polymers can be mixed with or electrochemically deposited onto transition metal oxides to achieve better performances as electrode materials. However, the wrapping of conducting polymers on metal oxides may reduce the effective contact area between metal oxides and electrolytes. This will further impede insertion of alkali ions into metal oxides and result in poor rate performance with low specific capacitance. A rational strategy is to use conducting polymers as active electrode materials directly and optimize their structures. To this end, a hierarchically nanostructured conductive polymer hydrogel was synthesized by a facile interfacial polymerization (Shi et al., 2014). 

For the conducting polymer hydrogel, the added second phase plays a critical role on the performance. In the case of a PPy hydrogel, the ratio of pyrrole to phytic acid largely impacts the micro structure and electrical property (Fig. 3.5). When the ratio increases, the PPy structures are changed from interconnected microstructured hollow spheres to smaller plate-like particles. Accordingly, more pores have been formed, but the electrical conductivities are decreased (Shi et al., 2014). 

Chen, Z., To, J.W.F., Wang, C., Lu, Z.D., Liu, N., Chortos, A., Pan, L.J., Wei, E, Cui, Y., Bao, Z.N., 2014c. A Three-dimensionally interconnected carbon nano tube-conducting polymer hydrogel network for high-performance flexible battery electrodes. Adv. Energy Mater. 4,1400207. 

Wang, K., X. Zhang, C. Li et al. 2014. Flexible solid-state supercapacitors based on a conducting polymer hydrogel with enhanced electrochemical performance. Journal of Materials Chemistry A 2 19726-19732. 

Ghosh, S., and O. Inganas. 1999. Conducting polymer hydrogels as 3D electrodes Applications for supercapacitors. Adv Mater 11 (14) 1214. 

Small, C.J., C.O. Too, and G.G. Wallace. 1997. Responsive conducting polymer-hydrogel composites. Polym Gels Networks 5 251. 

Ismail YA, Martinez JG, Al Harrasi AS et al (2011) Sensing characteristics of a conducting polymer/hydrogel hybrid microfiber artificial muscle. Sensors Actuators B Chem 160 1180-1190. doi 10.1016/j.snb.2011.09.044... 

Xiao, H., Xia, Y., Cai, C., 2013. Conducting polymer hydrogel reactor for synthesizing Au nanoparticles and its use in the reduction of p-nitrophenol. Journal of Nanoparticle Research 15. 

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