Polypyrrole coatings on gelatin fiber scaffolds: Material and electrochemical characterizations in organic and aqueous electrolyte

Abstract

Polypyrrole (PPy) was chemically deposited on glycose-crosslinked gelatin fiber scaffold (FS) by simple dip coating technique, resulting in conductive fiber scaffolds (CFS). The CFS samples were comparatively studied in aqueous and propylene carbonate solutions of equal concentrations of lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (LiTFSI) electrolyte. Our aim in this work was to characterize the mechanical and electrochemical properties of the CFS samples. The new CFS material was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and FTIR measurements confirming chemical oxidized PPy deposits on FS. The electrochemical measurements applying cyclic voltammetric, chronoamperometric and chronopotentiometric measurements showed that while diffusion coefficients for both solvents were in similar range, the exchanged charge was nearly doubled in aqueous solutions. The specific capacitance of the CFS had the highest value in aqueous electrolyte reaching 175Fg−1, which suggests that in addition to smart tissue engineering, this novel CFS material could also find application in energy storage.