Electrochemical synthesis of poly(3-thiophene acetic acid) nanowires with water-soluble macromolecule templates

Poly(3-thiophene acetic acid) (PTAA) nanowires are synthesized in a high yield by electrochemical polymerization, with diameters of about 200 nm and lengths of tens of micrometres. In the reaction systems, the water soluble macromolecules hydroxyethylcellulose (HEC), chitosan (Cs) and polyacrylamide (PAM) are added respectively as templates through a dip-coating process, where the macromolecules are spread on an indium tin oxide glass which is used as the working electrode. However, when polyethylene glycol (PEG) is used, only a PTAA film can be obtained. Therefore the interactions between template macromolecules and TAA monomers play a key role in the formation of PTAA nanowires and the dip-coating process presents an effective way to produce 1D conductive polymer materials with controllable shape. The optical, electrochemical and surface properties are also studied respectively to compare the performances of PTAA film and nanowires, where the latter indicates good electrochemical responsiveness and evidently increased hydrophobicity.