A considerable interest in conductive hydrogels has led to many advances in responsive systems, drug delivery, batteries, and solar cells. Although there are numerous ways to make hydrogels conductive, this work focuses on the surface post-synthetic modification of the biopolymer-based hydrogel to photochemically initiate polymerization of conductive polymers (i.e., aniline, pyrrole, or thiophene). The photochemistry is dependent on the metal centers (i.e., V5+, Fe3+) implemented during this process. Different doping methods can be applied to improve the charge transfer abilities of the gel. Current-voltage sweeps (I-V) showed the efficiency of charge transfer within the system depending on the metal photoinitiator, the conductive polymer, as well as the dopant. More importantly, partitioning the synthesis steps of the hydrogels validates the role of the dopant on the electron transfer of the conductive polymers. It has also been shown that the Fe3+ system helps order the PANI in the alginate hydrogel but has little impact in the cellulose gels, whereas the V5+ system orders PANI more efficiently in the cellulose hydrogel. Initial results show that polypyrrole (PPy) induces more conductivity in the gels than polyaniline (PANI). The redox potentials of Fe and V in their respective systems can be studied using cyclic voltammetry. Potential applications to this work may include photo-patterning of the hydrogels via photoreduction, thus forming regions with varying conductive abilities.

Employing metal-polysaccharide coordination complexes for photoinitiated polymerization of conductive polymers intercalated in biomimetic composites

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ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.