Electrocatalytic properties of the ion beam irradiated conducting polypyrrole

The electrocatalytic property of the conducting polypyrrole (PPy) films doped with palladium chloride and irradiated with heavy ion beams was studied for methanol oxidation. The PPy films were electropolymerized on gold film coated glass plate electrodes, subsequently doped with different amounts of PdCl2 and then irradiated with 120 MeV, Au+ ions at a dose of 1012 ions/cm2. The cyclic voltammograms (CVs) of these samples for methanol oxidation in 0.1 M HClO4 showed a four times increase in the anodic current as compared to the un-irradiated ones. These improvements in the electrocatalytic activity by ion beam irradiation could be associated with better complex formation between the dopant and conducting polymer matrix which was confirmed by the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) studies.