Dopant-Enabled Supramolecular Approach for Controlled Synthesis of Nanostructured Conductive Polymer Hydrogels.
Conducting polymer hydrogels emerge as a novel class of polymeric materials that show great potential in many energy, environmental, and biomedical devices. We describe here for the first time a general supramolecular approach toward controlled in situ synthesis of one-dimensional nanostructured conductive hydrogels (polypyrrole (PPy) as a model system) using a rational dopant counterion, which is a disc-shaped liquid crystal molecular copper phthalocyanine-3,4',4″,4‴-tetrasulfonic acid tetrasodium salt (CuPcTs). The dopant molecule CuPcTs cross-linked the PPy chains to form a three-dimensional network that gelated into a hydrogel. The PPy hydrogel could be synthesized in bulk quantities with uniform morphology of self-assembled interconnected nanofibers. The tetra-functional dopant favors a supramolecular self-assembly mechanism to form one-dimensional PPy nanostructures. Furthermore, the enhanced interchain charge transport of CuPcTs doped PPy resulted in greatly enhanced conductivity and pseudocapacitance compared with pristine PPy.
Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Photonic and Electronic Materials, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University , Nanjing 210093, China.|Materials Science and Engineering Program and Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, Texas 78712, United States.
Yaqun
Y
Wang
Materials Science and Engineering Program and Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, Texas 78712, United States.
Ye
Y
Shi
Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Photonic and Electronic Materials, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University , Nanjing 210093, China.
Lijia
L
Pan
Materials Science and Engineering Program and Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, Texas 78712, United States.
Yu
Y
Ding
Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Photonic and Electronic Materials, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University , Nanjing 210093, China.
Yu
Y
Zhao
Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Photonic and Electronic Materials, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University , Nanjing 210093, China.
Yun
Y
Li
Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Photonic and Electronic Materials, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University , Nanjing 210093, China.
Yi
Y
Shi
Materials Science and Engineering Program and Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, Texas 78712, United States.
Guihua
G
Yu
Supramolecular; conductive polymers; hydrogel; nanostructured polymers; one-dimensional; polypyrrole