New polymeric conducting materials prepared from organic conductors

The literature covering primarily 1993-1995 has been reviewed. Combination of advantageous mechanical and optical properties in polymers with a high electric conductivity has long been studied in two main direction. First, conducting polymers possessing normally a system of conjugated double bonds in the backbone have been synthesized; secondly, well-known non-conducting polymers are modified by incorporation of conducting, sometimes organic, materials (heterophase systems). This paper discusses the main tendencies and examples illustrating various approaches to the problem of passing from a chemical compound with electric conductivity to a polymeric material in its useful form and, on the examples of main conducting polymers (polyacetylene, polypyrrole, polythiophenes, polyphenylenes, polyaniline), a series of methods for eliminating insolubility and infusibility, which until recently have considerably limited the applicability of these polymers. A considerable progress in polymer composites and blends is also observed, primarily due to application of new organic conducting low- and high-molecular-weight materials and new preparation techniques. The content of the conducting phase in the system is reduced to about 1% and thus the useful properties of polymer matrix are retained.