Recently, electroactive polymers incorporated with aniline oligomers have attracted research attention because of their superior properties such as good solubility, biodegradable properties and the ability to form films [1][2][3][4][5]. These synthetic strategies include post polymerization grafting of oligoanilines onto the polymer chain, polycondensation of reactive monomers containing oligoanilines to form polymers, and oxidative coupling polymerization to form oligoaniline segments during polymerization [6]. Chao and Wang synthesized a series of electroactive polymers which bear oligoaniline, phenylamine, and fluorene groups in their side chain [7][8][9]. The generated fluorescence showed a clear multiple stimuli-responsive behavior against redox species, pH, electricity, and pressure, contributed by the sensitive oligoaniline and phenylamine groups. Zagorska and co-workers prepared electroactive polymers combining the electrochromic properties of polythiophenes and oligoanilines [10,11]. Both the polythiophene main chains and the oligoaniline side chains could be doped in various ways. Yeh and coworkers synthesized a series of electroactive polymers such as epoxy [12], polyimide [13,14], polyurea [15], and polyamide [16] as anticorrosion coating materials. The mechanism for the enhanced corrosion protection ability of the electroactive polymer coatings could be attributed to the formation of passive metal oxide layers on the metal electrode surface, which was induced by the redox catalytic capabilities of the aniline oligomer [17,18].
Received 16 June 2017; accepted in revised form 6 September 2017Abstract. A novel gold/aniline-pentamer-based electroactive polyamide (Au/EPA) composites that can modify carbon paste electrodes (CPEs) for ascorbic acid (AA) sensing has been studied in detail in this article. Cyclic voltammetry studies indicated improved electrochemical properties of the Au/EPA composites, demonstrating the occurrence of efficient electron/ charge transfer between the Au and the EPA. Experimental tests shows that there is a linear relationship between the concentration of added AA and the response current for the CPE modified with Au/EPA sensor to the concentration of AA in the range of 0.05-0.75 mM (R 2 = 0.996, n = 15). The detection limit and the sensitivity of the Au/EPA-CPE AA sensors were 2.75 μM at a signal to noise ratio (S/N) of 3, and 21.7 mA·mM -1 , respectively.