Conductive bacterial cellulose by in situ laccase polymerization of aniline.

Euijin Shim,Hye Rim Kim,Artur Cavaco-Paulo,Marta A Teixeira,Jennifer Noro,Jing Su,Carla Silva,Yogendra Kumar Mishra

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0214546

Euijin Shim, Hye Rim Kim + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214546

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Abstract

Conductive and colored bacterial cellulose (BC) was developed by entrapment of polyaniline (PANi) onto dry BC membranes. The polyaniline was produced by in situ green polymerization of aniline by Myceliophthora thermophila laccase at pH = 4, 25°C, in the presence of a mediator, 1-hydroxybenzotriazol (HBT), using two different reactors, a water bath (WB) and an ultrasonic bath (US). MALDI-TOF and 1H NMR characterization of the experiment solutions confirmed the efficient polymerization of aniline by laccase. The dried BC membranes with entrapped polyaniline showed electrical conductive behavior and strong coloration, opening novel routes for the exploitation of functionalized bacterial cellulose as a green material for technical textiles, wearables, and other applications.

Highlights

Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a natural polymer with intrinsic 3D network structure, high porosity and ultrafine mechanical properties [1,2,3,4]
Major steps covering the production of non-woven bacterial cellulose are cultivation, washing and bleaching, post-processing and drying
Small or large molecules can be entrapped inside the wet BC fibers during post-processing and the subsequent drying conduct to their retention inside bacterial cellulose non-woven material for several applications [24, 31]

Summary

Introduction

Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a natural polymer with intrinsic 3D network structure, high porosity and ultrafine mechanical properties [1,2,3,4]. Conductive polymers when applied in electrochemical systems, would confer to BC products excellent redox properties, high environmental stability and trouble-less synthesis [10, 11]. The conjugation mechanism of polyaniline is unique among other conducting polymers owing to a combination of benzenoid and quinoid rings leading to three different oxidation states. Both chemical and electrochemical polymerization methods used for aniline polymerization involve harsh conditions like oxidant ammonium peroxydisulfate, potassium dichromate or ferric chloride, in low acidic solutions (pH 0–1), for the formation of head-to-

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