Chlorine dopants in plasma synthesized heteroaromatic polymers

This work presents a study on the simultaneous polymerization and doping by plasma of pyrrole and thiophene with chloroform. The synthesis is a hybrid combination of fragmentation, polymerization and doping processes, because some of the reagents participating in the chemical reactions are produced by the decomposition of chloroform molecules by plasma. The main objective was to study the dopant-polymer interaction, from the point of view of the electric transport along the material. The conductivity of the chlorinated polymers resulted in the 10(-5)-10(-3) S/cm interval, depending on the environmental humidity. This conductivity is approximately 5 orders of magnitude higher than that of the same polymers synthesized by plasma without doping. The characterization of the polymers was carried out by means of SEM, EDS, FT-IR and XPS spectroscopies. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.