Effect of nonionic surfactant additives on the electropolymerization of pyrrole in aqueous solutions

The electrochemical polymerization of pyrrole was performed in the aqueous solutions with and without adding various nonionic surfactants such as nonaphenol polyethyleneoxy (n) ether (OPn, where n=4, 7, 10, 15, or 21), octodecyl polyethyleneoxy (20) ether (A-20) and octodecopolyethyleneoxy (10) ester (SE-10) etc. The mechanical properties and surface smoothness of the polypyrrole (PPy) films prepared from the aqueous solutions with addition of the nonionic surfactants OPn(n≥7) are greatly improved in comparison with those of the PPy prepared from the aqueous solutions without the surfactants. With the OP10 additive, the effect of the additive concentration, pH value of the solutions, solution anions, polymerization current and temperature on the mechanical properties of the as-prepared PPy films were studied systematically. Very smooth and flexible PPy film with the tensile strength of 127 MPa and the conductivity of 54 S/cm was obtained from pH 2, 1 mol/l TsONa, 0.1 mol/l pyrrole aqueous solution with the addition of 0.1 mol/l OP10.