Formation of polyaniline/Pt nanoparticle composite films and their electrocatalytic properties

Polyaniline (PANI) thin films modified with platinum nanoparticles have been prepared by several methods, characterised and assessed in terms of electrocatalytic properties. These composite materials have been prepared by the in situ reduction of a platinum salt (K2PtCl4) by PANI, in a variety of solvents, resulting in the formation of platinum nanoparticles and clusters of different sizes. The further deposition of platinum clusters at spin cast thin films of PANI/Pt composites from a neutral aqueous solution of K2PtCl4 has also been demonstrated. Thin-film electrodes prepared from these materials have been investigated for their electrocatalytic activity by studying hydrazine oxidation and dichromate reduction. The properties of the composite materials have been determined using UV-visible spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The nature of the material formed is strongly dependent on the solvent used to dissolve PANI, the method of preparation of the PANI/Pt solution and the composition of the spin cast thin film before subsequent deposition of platinum from the aqueous solution of K2PtCl4

Conducting Polymer Nanomaterials and Their Applications

A paradigm shift takes place in the fabrication of conducting polymers from bulky features with microsize to ultrafine features with nanometer range. Novel conducting polymer nanomaterials require the potential to control synthetic approaches of conducting polymer on molecular and atomic levels. In this article, the synthetic methodology of conducting polymer has been briefly considered with chemical oxidation polymerization and electrochemical polymerization. The recent achievements in the fabrication of conducting polymer nanomaterials have been extensively reviewed with respect to soft template method, hard template method and template-free method. It also details the morphological spectrum of conducting polymer nanomaterials such as nanoparticle, core-shell nanomaterial, hollow nanosphere, nanofiber/nanorod, nanotube, thin film and nanopattern and nanocomposite. In addition, their applications are discussed under nanometer-sized dimension.This work has been financially supported by the Brain Korea 21 program of the Korean Ministry of Education and the Hyperstructured Organic Materials Research Center supported by Korea Science and Engineering Foundation