Abstract:
Polypyrrole polymer films doped with
large surfactant anions, dodecyl benzene sulfonate,
(PPy/DBS) can be used as soft actuators and their
performance and stability depend on the type of the
cycling electrolytes and their concentrations. In an
attempt to discover suitable electrolytes for such
actuators, the diffusion of counter ion into PPy/DBS
films in various aqueous electrolytes has been
investigated in this work. The PPy/DBS films were
cycled at different scan rates in various alkali halide
aqueous electrolytes having concentrations ranging
from 0.1-1 M in order to determine the diffusion
coefficients of alkali halide ions. The effective diffusion
coefficients were found to increase with the
concentration of the electrolytes and decrease with the
increase in size of cations. Since the effective diffusion
coefficient of counter ions is a direct measure of the
speed of response when such films are used as
electrodes in artificial muscles or in batteries, this
finding is especially useful for the design of fast actuators based on PPy/DBS polymers.
