Polyacetylene reductive doping

These quarternized polymers can be viewed as self-doped but exhibit relatively low intrinsic conductivities. The polymers can be oxidatively doped with iodine, or reductively doped with TTF, to give highly conducting polyacetylenes with conductivities of 10"4 and 10 1 S/cm, respectively. One additional attractive feature of this system is that, unlike PA, these quarternized PAs are very stable in air. 

Figure 5.3. The reduction (doping) of trans-polyacetylene. In the ideal case, the mobility of the charged states allows the bipolaron to collapse into a pair...

The electronic structures of poiy(fluoroacetylene) and poly(difluoroacetylene) have been investigated previously using the ab initio Hartree-Fock crystal orbital method with a minimum basis set (42). Only the cis and trans isomers with assumed, planar geometries were studied. The trans isomer was calculated to be more stable in both cases, and the trans compounds were predicted to be better intrinsic semiconductors and more conductive upon reductive doping than trans polyacetylene. However, our results show that head-to-tail poly(fluoroacetylene) prefers the cis structure and that the trans structure for poly(difluoroacetylene) will not be stable. Thus the conclusions reached previously need to be re-evaluated based on our new structural information. Furthermore, as noted above, addition of electrons to these polymers may lead to structural deformations that could significantly change the conductive nature of the materials. 

Grafts. Polyacetylene films were synthesized at -78°C using techniques similar to those developed by Shirakawa and coworkers (11). Reductive doping was carried out in a dry box by immersion of (CH)X films in 1 M sodium naphthalide/THF solutions for 2 minutes. The films were then washed several times with dry, 02-free THF and allowed to stand in fresh THF for approximately 1 hour. The conductivities and compositions of the films were in the range 5-50 S/cm and [CHNaQ O-0.25]x respectively. 

The electrochemical behavior of poly(RCOT)s has also been examined [40]. As expected from the electrochemical properties of unsubstituted polyacetylene, films of poly(RCOT)s coated on an electrode and immersed in an acetonitrile electrolyte solution (in which the polymers are not soluble) are found to undergo reversible oxidative and reductive doping. Unlike unsubstituted polyacetylene, these films may be prepared readily by casting from solution, or, in the case of poly(scc-butylCOT), by electrodecomposition from a THF solution. In contrast to the voltammetry of polymer films, cyclic voltammograms of methylene chloride... 

It should be noted that the preparation of n-type (reduced) polyacetylene using strong organic bases (e.g., alkyl lithium compounds) or more commonly electron transfer reagents (e.g., sodium naphthalide radical anion) employs the two major classes of initiators used in anionic polymerization of monomers such as styrene and butadiene. Reductive doping can also be accomplished by deprotonation of, for example, acetylene/butadiene copolymers and related phenylenepentadienylenes." ... 

The oxidation and/or reduction reactions yield polymeric systems having an extended Jt-electron system along the chain. Doping to the conducting state, in the instance of polyacetylene by exposnre to iodine vapor (p-doping, oxidizing). 

C yields a polymer with 90% cis content polymerization at 100°C yields a polymer with >90% trans content. Polyacetylene, doped with an oxidant or a reductant, showed promise as a polymeric semiconductor [Chien, 1984], That promise was not realized because of the oxidative instability of polyacetylene and emergence of cheaper and more stable polymer systems (Sec. 2-14j). Various substituted acetylenes such as phenylacetylene have also been studied [Kanki et al., 2002 Misumi et al., 2000],... 

One concern with measurements of this type, is that undoping of a film may result from the outward diffusion of dopant ions or the inward diffusion of counterions which would then form salt within the film. This has been avoided in our polyacetylene study by measuring further doping pulses in samples which have only been doped in one direction, either reduction or oxidation. 

The origin of the conduction mechanism has been a source of controversy ever since conducting polymers were first discovered. At first, doping was assumed to simply remove electrons from the top of the valence band (oxidation) or add electrons to the bottom of the conduction band (reduction). This model associates charge carriers with free spins (unpaired electrons). However, the measured conductivity in doped polyacetylene (and other conducting polymers such as polyphenylene and polypyrrole) is r greater than what can be accounted for on the basis of free spin alone. 

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