Applications of Oligomers for Nanostructured Conducting Polymers

Synergetic Effect of Electrical and Topographical Cues in Aniline Trimer-Based Polyurethane Fibrous Scaffolds on Tissue Regeneration

Processibility and biodegradability of conductive polymers are major concerns when they are applied to tissue regeneration. This study synthesizes dissolvable and conductive aniline trimer-based polyurethane copolymers (DCPU) and processes them into scaffolds by using electrospinning with different patterns (random, oriented, and latticed). The effects of topographic cue changes on electrical signal transmission and further regulation of cell behaviors concerning bone tissue are researched. Results show that DCPU fibrous scaffolds possessed good hydrophilicity, swelling capacity, elasticity, and fast biodegradability in enzymatic liquid. In addition, the conductivity and efficiency of electrical signal transmission can be tuned by changing the surface’s topological structure. Among them, oriented DCPU scaffolds (DCPU-O) showed the best conductivity with the lowest ionic resistance value. Furthermore, the viability and proliferation results of bone mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) demonstrate a significant increase on three DCPU scaffolds compared to AT-free scaffolds (DPU-R). Especially, DCPU-O scaffolds exhibit superior abilities to promote cell proliferation because of their unique surface topography and excellent electroactivity. Concurrently, the DCPU-O scaffolds can synergistically promote osteogenic differentiation in terms of osteogenic differentiation and gene expression levels when combined with electrical stimulation. Together, these results suggest a promising use of DCPU-O fibrous scaffolds in the application of tissue regeneration.

Aniline dimers serving as stable and efficient transfer units for intermolecular charge-carrier transmission

Because any perturbation in the number of oxidation sites associated with the polymeric backbone can cause changes in the electrical properties, the stability of electrical properties has strongly prevented the wide adoption of most conducting polymers for commercialization, e.g., polyanilines (PANI). Herein, we showed that aniline dimers (AD) had more stable conductivity during redox due to their determinately separate oxidization or reduction units. Instead of intramolecular charge transfer as PANI, AD could serve as effective transfer units to facilitate intermolecular charge-carrier transmission due to low band-gap formation induced by the J-aggregation of AD, ensuring efficient conductivity. Typically, the electrical properties of AD-derived materials will still be stable after 10,000 redox cycles under a high operating voltage, far surpassing PANI under equivalent conditions. Meanwhile, the AD-derived materials could act as effective conducting and sensing layers with good stability. This approach opened an avenue for improving the stability of conductive polymers.

Biodegradable polymeric materials for flexible and degradable electronics

Biodegradable electronics have great potential to reduce the environmental footprint of electronic devices and to avoid secondary removal of implantable health monitors and therapeutic electronics. Benefiting from the intensive innovation on biodegradable nanomaterials, current transient electronics can realize full components’ degradability. However, design of materials with tissue-comparable flexibility, desired dielectric properties, suitable biocompatibility and programmable biodegradability will always be a challenge to explore the subtle trade-offs between these parameters. In this review, we firstly discuss the general chemical structure and degradation behavior of polymeric biodegradable materials that have been widely studied for various applications. Then, specific properties of different degradable polymer materials such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, and flexibility were compared and evaluated for real-life applications. Complex biodegradable electronics and related strategies with enhanced functionality aimed for different components including substrates, insulators, conductors and semiconductors in complex biodegradable electronics are further researched and discussed. Finally, typical applications of biodegradable electronics in sensing, therapeutic drug delivery, energy storage and integrated electronic systems are highlighted. This paper critically reviews the significant progress made in the field and highlights the future prospects.

Electroactive peptide-based supramolecular polymers

The electroactivity as a supramolecular feature of intelligently designed self-assembled systems stimulates a wide interest in development of new stimuli-responsive biomaterials. A diverse set of nanostructures are fabricated through programmed self-assembly of molecules for functional materials. Electroactive groups are conjugated as a functional moiety for organic semiconductor applications. In this review, we present recent examples of self-assembling peptide molecules and electroactive units for supramolecular functional electronic ​and optical materials with potential biomedical and bioelectronics applications.

An Electroactive Oligo-EDOT Platform for Neural Tissue Engineering

The unique electrochemical properties of the conductive polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) make it an attractive material for use in neural tissue engineering applications. However, inadequate mechanical properties, and difficulties in processing and lack of biodegradability have hindered progress in this field. Here, the functionality of PEDOT:PSS for neural tissue engineering is improved by incorporating 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) oligomers, synthesized using a novel end-capping strategy, into block co-polymers. By exploiting end-functionalized oligoEDOT constructs as macroinitiators for the polymerization of poly(caprolactone), a block co-polymer is produced that is electroactive, processable, and bio-compatible. By combining these properties, electroactive fibrous mats are produced for neuronal culture via solution electrospinning and melt electrospinning writing. Importantly, it is also shown that neurite length and branching of neural stem cells can be enhanced on the materials under electrical stimulation, demonstrating the promise of these scaffolds for neural tissue engineering.

Radical addition polymerization: Enzymatic template-free synthesis of conjugated polymers and their nanostructure fabrication

Conjugated polymers are attractive for many applications due to their unique properties. Their molecular structure can easily be tuned, making them suitable for an enormous number of specific applications. Conjugated polymers have the potential to achieve electrical properties similar to those of noncrystalline inorganic semiconductors; however, their chemical structure is much more complex and somewhat resembles that of biomacromolecules. The molecular conformation and interactions of conjugated polymers play an important role in their functionality. The use of enzymes has emerged as a highly valuable alternative method to synthesize these polymers and is very useful in the fabrication of their nanostructures. Here, we present established strategies for the synthesis of conjugated polymers in template-free systems that do not interfere with the preparation of their nanostructures. These strategies are based on the use of peroxidases (class III; EC 1.11.1.7, donor: hydrogen peroxide oxidoreductase), which are enzymes that have the ability to catalyze the oxidation of a number of compounds (including aromatics such as aniline, pyrrole, thiophene and some of their derivatives), in the presence of hydrogen peroxide, to obtain conjugated polymers.

Direct grafting of tetraaniline via perfluorophenylazide photochemistry to create antifouling, low bio-adhesion surfaces

Conjugated polyaniline has shown anticorrosive, hydrophilic, antibacterial, pH-responsive, and pseudocapacitive properties making it of interest in many fields. However, in situ grafting of polyaniline without harsh chemical treatments is challenging. In this study, we report a simple, fast, and non-destructive surface modification method for grafting tetraaniline (TANI), the smallest conjugated repeat unit of polyaniline, onto several materials via perfluorophenylazide photochemistry. The new materials are characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and electrospray ionization (ESI) mass spectroscopy. TANI is shown to be covalently bonded to important carbon materials including graphite, carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and reduced graphene oxide (rGO), as confirmed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Furthermore, large area modifications on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) films through dip-coating or spray-coating demonstrate the potential applicability in biomedical applications where high transparency, patternability, and low bio-adhesion are needed. Another important application is preventing biofouling in membranes for water purification. Here we report the first oligoaniline grafted water filtration membranes by modifying commercially available polyethersulfone (PES) ultrafiltration (UF) membranes. The modified membranes are hydrophilic as demonstrated by captive bubble experiments and exhibit extraordinarily low bovine serum albumin (BSA) and Escherichia coli adhesions. Superior membrane performance in terms of flux, BSA rejection and flux recovery after biofouling are demonstrated using a cross-flow system and dead-end cells, showing excellent fouling resistance produced by the in situ modification.

Supramolecular chirality control via self-assembly of oligoaniline in the chemical oxidative polymerization process

Chirality control of PANI nanofibers is achieved by selecting the oligomeric species and changing the concentration of CSA and solvents.

Characterization of Aniline Tetramer by MALDI TOF Mass Spectrometry upon Oxidative and Reductive Cycling

By combining electrochemical experiments with mass spectrometric analysis, it is found that using short chain oligomers to improve the cycling stability of conducting polymers in supercapacitors is still problematic. Cycling tests via cyclic voltammetry over a potential window of 0 to 1.0 V or 0 to 1.2 V in a two-electrode device configuration resulted in solid-state electropolymerization and chain scission. Electropolymerization of the aniline tetramer to generate long chain oligomers is shown to be possible despite the suggested decrease in reactivity and increase in intermediate stability with longer oligomers. Because aniline oligomers are more stable towards reductive cycling when compared to oxidative cycling, future conducting polymer/oligomer-based pseudocapacitors should consider using an asymmetric electrode configuration.

Detection of aniline oligomers on polyaniline-gold interface using resonance Raman scattering

In situ deposited conducting polyaniline films prepared by the oxidation of aniline with ammonium peroxydisulfate in aqueous media of various acidities on gold and silicon supports were characterized by Raman spectroscopy. Enhanced Raman bands were found in the spectra of polyaniline films produced in the solutions of weak acids or in water on gold surface. These bands were weak for the films prepared in solutions of a strong acid on a gold support. The same bands are present in the Raman spectra of the reaction intermediates deposited during aniline oxidation in water or aqueous solutions of weak or strong acids on silicon removed from the reaction mixture at the beginning of the reaction. Such films are formed by aniline oligomers adsorbed on the surface. They were detected on the polyaniline-gold interface using resonance Raman scattering on the final films deposited on gold. The surface resonance Raman spectroscopy of the monolayer of oligomers found in the bulk polyaniline film makes this method advantageous in surface science, with many applications in electrochemistry, catalysis, and biophysical, polymer, or analytical chemistry.

The role of unbound oligomers in the nucleation and growth of electrodeposited polypyrrole and method for preparing high strength, high conductivity films

Polypyrrole is a material with immensely useful properties suitable for a wide range of electrochemical applications, but its development has been hindered by cumbersome manufacturing processes. Here we show that a simple modification to the standard electrochemical polymerization method produces polypyrrole films of equivalently high conductivity and superior mechanical properties in one-tenth of the polymerization time. Preparing the film as a series of electrodeposited layers with thorough solvent washing between layering was found to produce excellent quality films even when layer deposition was accelerated by high current. The washing step between the sequentially polymerized layers altered the deposition mechanism, eliminating the typical dendritic growth and generating nonporous deposits. Solvent washing was shown to reduce the concentration of oligomeric species in the near-electrode region and hinder the three-dimensional growth mechanism that occurs by deposition of secondary particles from solution. As artificial muscles, the high density sequentially polymerized films produced the highest mechanical work output yet reported for polypyrrole actuators.