Conducting polymers possess the electronic properties of metals or metal oxides and mechanical properties of polymers. They can be regarded as sustainable and renewable material family providing clean and sustainable energy sources. The practical application of conducting polymers may tackle the renewable energy problem facing us.

Conducting polymers can offer the advantages of high charge storage, high conductivity, easy processability and environmental benign. Their properties can be tuned at the molecular level and fabricated into different forms for use. They can be used as electrodes alone. Also they can easily form composites between different types of organic conductors (e.g. conducting polymers, graphene), or even with conventional semiconductors metal oxides via different structural model. The synergistic effect between the components leads to the enhanced electrochemical properties or other novel function.   

Conducting polymers are the ideal candidate for use in flexible/wearable energy storage devices. Some cytocompatible organic conductors (e.g. PPy, PEDOT, graphene) can be used for biobatteries.

References:

1. Xiaoteng Jia, Caiyun Wang, Chen Zhao, Yu Ge, Gordon G. Wallace, “Towards Biodegradable Mg-Air Bioelectric Batteries Composed of Silk Fibroin-Polypyrrole Film”, Advanced Functional Materials 2015, accepted, ID: (adfm.201503498R1) - [EMID:0bc05e62f6348b20].
2. Yu Ge, Caiyun Wang, Kewei Shu, Chen Zhao, Xiaoteng Jia, Sanjeev Gambhir, Gordon G. Wallace, “A facile approach for fabrication of mechanically strong graphene/polypyrrole films with large areal capacitance for supercapacitor applications” RSC Advances, 2015, 5, 102643-102651.
3. Sha Li, Chen Zhao, Kewei Shu, Caiyun Wang, ZaiPing Guo, Gordon G.Wallace, Hua Kun Liu*, “Mechanically strong high performance layered polypyrrole nano fibre/graphene film for flexible solid state supercapacitor”, Carbon 2014, 79, 554-562.
4. Yang Yang, Caiyun Wang, Syed Ashraf and Gordon G. Wallace, “Polypyrrole Doped with Redox-Active Poly(2-methoxyaniline-5-sulfonic acid) for Lithium Secondary Batteries”,  RSC Advances 2013, 3, 5447-5452.
5. Yang Yang, Caiyun Wang, Binbin Yue, Sanjeev Gambhir, Chee O. Too, Gordon G. Wallace, “Electrochemically Synthesized Polypyrrole/Graphene Composite Film for Lithium Batteries”, Advanced Energy Materials 2012, 2, 266-272.
6. Yang Yang, Caiyun Wang, Chunming Zhang, Dan Wang, Dannong He and Gordon G. Wallace, “A Novel Codoping Approach for Enhancing the Performance of Polypyrrole Cathode in a Bioelectric Battery”, Carbon 2014, 80, 691-697.
7. Binbin Yue, Caiyun Wang, Pawel Wagner, Yang Yang, Xin Ding, David L. Officer, Gordon G. Wallace,"Electrodeposition of pyrrole and 3-(4-tert-butylphenyl)thiophene copolymer for supercapaciotr applications", Synthetic Metals 2012, 162, 2216-2221
8. Yong Kong, Caiyun Wang, Yang Yang, Chee O. Too, Gordon G. Wallace, “A battery composed of a polypyrrole cathode and a magnesium alloy anode-Toward a bioelectric battery”, Synthetic Metals 2012, 162, 584-589.