Oxidative polymerization of 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene using transition-metal tetrasulfonated phthalocyanine

A method for the synthesis of water-soluble polyethylenedioxythiophene (PEDOT) by using transition-metal tetrasulfonated phthalocyanine (TSPc) and hydrogen peroxide as effective catalysts in the presence of sulfonated polystyrene (SPS) is reported. The reactions were carried out with different catalysts, such as iron, cobalt and manganese phthalocyanine. Metallophthalocyanines have shown good activities for polymerization, although they degraded easily under oxidizing conditions. In order to determine the role of pH during the polymerization, the reaction was carried out under different pH conditions 2, 2.5 and 3 and the best results were obtained at pH 2. The conductivity of our product was obtained and compared with similar commercial material. PEDOT was characterized by UV-vis and FT-IR spectroscopies and also cyclic voltammetry. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) demonstrated that the synthesized polymer has convenient electroactivity.