Temperature and solvent effect on the electrochemical polymerization of azulene

Summary form only given. It is said that polypyrrole synthesized electrochemically at low temperature shows high electric conductivity. However, this relation does not held in other electrochemically prepared other polymers such as polyaniline or poly(3-methoxythiophene). In this paper, we report the electric conductivity of polyazulene prepared electrochemically in a series of alkyl-nitrile solvents (CH/sub 3/CN, C/sub 2/H/sub 5/CN, n-C/sub 3/H/sub 7/CN, n-C/sub 4/H/sub 9/CN and n-C/sub 5/H/sub 11/CN) at temperature range between -5 and 45 /spl deg/C. If the number of the monomers at the electrode during the growth of the polymer is low, the prepared polymer consist the cross linkage between the chain. On the other hand, the number of the monomer is high, the polymer chain composed the unexpected linkage. Cross linkage or unexpected linkage destroy the conjugated chain and bring the decrease of the electric conductivity. While the supply of monomer is most suitable, long conjugated chain was developed as long as possible and the electric conductivity of the polymer was improved. The number of the monomers arrive at the electrode was governed by diffusion constant. In the electrochemical polymerization of azulene, diffusion constant of the solvent is the key factor. There is an optimum diffusion constant for synthesis the highly electric conductive polymers. It will be around 0.55 x 10/sup -5/ cm/sup 2//sec for polyazulene.