Electrocatalysis by Nanostructured Conducting Polymers

Nanostructiavd Conductive Polymers Edited by Ali Eftekhari 2010 Wiley Sons, Ltd 

2 Electrochemical Synthetic Techniques of Nanostructured Conducting Polymers 

The electrochemical synthetic techniques of nanostructured conducting polymers are mainly carried out using galvanostat, potentiostat, and cyclic voltammetry (CV)- The advantages of electrochemical over chemical preparation are that the sizes of the nano-particles are easily controlled by the applied potential, current density, scan rate, and the number of cycles, and especially that the nanostmctured conducting polymer deposited on the electrode material can be directly used to investigate its electrochemical properties and in situ spectroelectrochemical characteristics. 

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In Chapter 24, Duo and coworkers discuss metal oxide nanoparticle reactivity on synthetic boron-doped diamond surfaces. Lamy and Leger treat electrocatalysis with electron-conducting polymers in the presence of noble metal nanoparticles, and new nanostructure materials for electrocatalysis are the subject of the final chapter, by Alonso-Vante. 

Among other advances, the nanostructuration of electrochemically synthesized conducting polymers has raised a lot of interest. To achieve this, one of the most straightforward and common way is the use of a scanning electrochemical microscope (SECM). Since the pioneering work of Bard, several authors have refined the conditions, improving the resolution. Heinze et al. used a PMMA matrix to confine more cleanly the electrodeposition of PPy [24], and in a further work, they could deposit micropatterns of poly(dimethoxybithiophene) with the help of electrocatalysis by a ruthenium complex, obtaining well-defined plots [25,26]. 

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