Polypyrrole-amphiphile blend electrodes: new reaction-driven structural processes with possible formation of vesicles

- Electrochemical responses from PPy/DBS reveal reaction-driven structural changes.
- Rising reduced and swollen films present very stable energetic structures.
- Their oxidation requires rising voltammetric overpotentials.
- Their oxidation begins by nucleation-relaxation as depicted by chronoamperograms.
- Formation of vesicles in the reacting film beyond a reduction threshold is proposed.

Films of conducting polymers mimic, during electrochemical reactions, the composition of the intracellular matrix of functional cells and some of its reaction-based functions originating biomimetic multifunctional devices. Here, using films of polypyrrole-amphiphile blends, new reaction induced structural changes were identified from electrochemical responses after a reduction threshold. By oxidation completion those structural changes are reversed. The presence of new nucleation processes during oxidation of the deep reduced and swollen gels can be described by removal of vesicles (water and cations inside an amphiphile membrane) formed, during the film reduction-swelling, inside the gel electrode after a reduction threshold. New experiments are required to corroborate the vesicle's formation.

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