Electrical conductivity of poly(vinyl chloride) obtained by photodehydrochlorination from laminated poly(vinyl chloride)/polypyrrole films

Abstract

AbstractPoly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) has been converted to an electrically conductive structure by combined electrochemical and photochemical methods. PVC was cast on a polypyrrole (PPy) film electrode which had been electrochemically prepared. The PVC layer in the laminated PVC/PPy films was first dehydrochlorinated under the illumination of UV light, and the generated polyenes were subsequently doped with I2 and FeCl3. The maximum electrical conductivity achieved for such PVC film was 2.51 X 10−2 and 8.63 10−2 S cm−1 after I2 and FeCl3 doping, respectively. The temperature dependence of the electrical conductivity showed different behavior in higher and lower temperature ranges. In the former (T > 243 K), the T−1 law held, and the activation energy and bandgap were estimated as 0.25 and 0.49 eV, respectively. In the latter (T < 243 K), the conductivity mechanism followed the variable range hopping model (T−1/4 law) in which the radius of the localized state wave function and the density of the localized states at the Fermi level were 1.25 × 103 Å and 1.03 X 1015 eV−1 cm−3, respectively. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.