Conductive Polymer Membranes Based On Poly(furan-co-pyrrole)

Since the conductive polymers were discovered in 1970s, they have attracted increasing interest due to their unique properties and wide applications such as energy, optoelectronic devices, sensors, molecular wires and molecular devices, etc. In contrast to other five heterocyclic polymers like polypyrrole and polythiophene, polyfuran is among the most ill-defined conjugated polymers. This is due to its lower aromaticity and higher oxidation potential compared with other conductive polymers. These inherent defects make polyfuran difficult to be obtained with good conjugated structures by the general chemical polymerization and electrochemical polymerization. Moreover, the problems also induce the failure of optimizations which is carried out by copolymerization. Here, a new synthetic route through the methylolation reaction between furfural and pyrrole was applied. The structures and properties of the copolymers obtained through the method were characterized in detail with infrared (IR) and ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis). The infulence of reaction conditions and copolymer compositions were investigated. In addition, the mechanism of reaction and conducting were discussed. Finally, several important properties, including thermal stability and mechanical properties of copolymers were elaborated.The data indicated that the copolymerization between furfual and pyrrole can achieved successfully by this method. The ring-opening of furan and pyrrole can be avoided during the polymerization. Resultant poly(furan-co-pyrrole) films show favorable environmental stability and thermal stability, high conductivity (1.011×10-3 S·cm-1) and good mechanical properties (10.2 MPa of tensile breaking strength,333.6 MPa of Young's modulus).