Nanostructured polystyrene-block-poly(4-vinyl pyridine)(pentadecylphenol) thin films as templates for polypyrrole synthesis

Abstract Polypyrrole has been chemically synthesized on thin film nanostructures obtained from comb-shaped supramolecules of polystyrene- block -poly(4-vinyl pyridine) (PS- b -P4VP) hydrogen bonded with pentadecylphenol (PDP). PDP was washed from thin films of cylindrical and lamellar self-assembled comb-copolymer systems, which resulted in removal of the upper layers of microdomains, leaving single cylindrical and lamellar layers covering a substrate, with P4VP segregated at the bottom as well as at the free air interface. This P4VP was complexed with Cu 2+ ions, after which chemical oxidation polymerization of pyrrole resulted in a thin polypyrrole layer covering the nanostructured block copolymer. The use of a catalytic amount of bipyrrole greatly improved the quality of the obtained product. The conductivity was measured to be ∼0.7 S cm −1 .