Preparation and Characterization Nanocomposites Based on Conducting Polymers and Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes with Different Dopants

Conducting polymers can be doped and dedoped rapidly to high charge density and as a result are potential active materials for use in various electrochemical applications. Thus an important application is the fabrication of modified electrodes. For this reason, the nanocomposite materials based on the functionalized carbon nanotubes, conducing polymers and different anionic dopants (sodium dodecyl sulphate -SDS, sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate - SDBS) were grown electrochemically onto a platinum substrate from an aqueous solution of 0.1M LiClO₄, functionalized carbon nanotubes, surfactants and the corresponding monomer (3,4 ethylen-dioxythiophene). All the obtained composites showed improved mechanical integrity, higher electronic and ionic conductivity and exhibited larger electrode specific capacitance than the polymer alone. The negatively charged FCNTs served as anionic dopant during the electropolymerization to synthesize PEDOT/FCNTs composite films. The synthetic, morphological and electrochemical properties of nanocomposite materials type PEDOT / FCNTs / surfactants were compared. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), cyclic voltammetry and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to investigate the electrochemical properties of the composite films.

The specific electrochemical capacitance of the composite films is a significantly greater value than that for pure polymer films prepared similarly. Using these composite films, the modified electrodes with improved properties were obtained.