Electrical Conductivity Modulation of Crosslinked Composite Nanofibers Based on PEO and PEDOT:PSS

摘要： The aim of this work is to investigate the development of nano?ber mats, based on intrinsically conductive polymers (ICPs), which show simultaneously a high electrical conductivity and mandatory insoluble water properties. In particular, the nano?bers, thanks to their properties such as high surface area, porosity, and their ability to o?er a preferential pathway for electron ?ow, play a crucial role to improve the essential characteristics ensured by ICPs. The nano?ber mats are obtained by electrospinning process, starting from a polymeric solution made of polyethylene oxide (PEO) and poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS). PEO is selected not only as a dopant to increase the electrical/ionic conductivity, as deeply reported in the literature, but also to ensure the proper stability of the polymeric jet, to collect a dried nano?ber mat. Moreover, in the present work, two di?erent treatments are proposed in order to induce crosslinking between PEO chains and PEDOT:PSS, made insoluble into water which is the ?nal sample. The ?rst process is based on a heating treatment, conducted at 130°C under nitrogen atmosphere for 6 h, named the annealing treatment. The second treatment is provided by UV irradiation that is e?ective to induce a ?nal crosslinking, when a photoinitiator, such as benzophenone, is added. Furthermore, we demonstrate that both crosslinking treatments can be used to verify the preservation of nanostructures and their good electrical conductivity after water treatment (i.e., water resistance). In particular, we con?rm that the crosslinking method with UV irradiation results to being more e?ective than the standard annealing treatment. Indeed, we demonstrate that the processing time, required to obtain the ?nal crosslinked nano?ber mats with a high electrical conductance, results to being smaller than the one needed during the heating treatment.