Evaluation of Structure, Nucleation and Growth Mechanism of Electropolymerized Polypyrrole on Highly Oriented Pyrolytic Graphite Electrode

Abstract

Chronoamperometry (i ± t) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used to study the nucleation and growth mechanism of electropolymerized polypyrrole formed on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) substrate surface. From i ± t measurements it was found that the nucleation and growth mechanism was a 3-D progressive after nuclei overlapping. However, before nuclei overlapping, it was not clear whether the mechanism was 2-D instantaneous or 3-D progressive. This ambiguity in the nucleation and growth mechanism was confirmed as 3-D progressive from the results of AFM measurements. In addition to nucleation and growth mechanism, possible models were proposed for different structures observed on the AFM image of polypyrrole, obtained from very early stages of polymerization.

Electrodeposition of Mn-Co/Polypyrrole Nanocomposites: An Electrochemical and In Situ Soft-X-ray Microspectroscopic Investigation

“…In Figure 2 B, we report the maximum current density ( i m ) and the corresponding time ( t m ) as a function of the number of the sequential pulses recorded during the electrosynthesis. The t m values ranging from 37 to 50 ms are in agreement with those reported for the electropolymerisation of pyrrole on GC [ 18 ] (0.06–0.15 s), highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) [ 74 , 75 ] (0.1–0.2 s) and vitreous carbon [ 73 ] (0.026–0.15 s). It can be noticed that both parameters slightly increase with the pulse number (with more rapidity from the 1st to the 20th pulse).…”

“…These electrode reactions lead to the electrodeposition of a solid composite material made of PPy and Mn/Co oxyhydroxides. All of these three kinds of electrode reactions are able to induce a nucleation and growth process at the electrochemical interface for: (i) PPy electropolymerisation [ 18 , 73 , 74 , 75 ] as well as (ii) anodic electrodeposition of MnO x [ 76 ] and (iii) CoO x [ 61 ]. Moreover, similar transient shapes have been demonstrated for PPy doping [ 77 , 78 , 79 ].…”

Nucleation and Growth Mechanism of Electropolymerization of Methylene Blue: The Effect of Preparation Potential on Poly(methylene blue) Structure

“…As revealed by a calculation of the area of these peaks, 85 % of the total charge density is due to the random process, while 15 % is due to nucleation and growth process. A reduced variable plot of the measured quantities (j/j max vs. t/t max ) allows us to determine the nucleation and growth mechanism [31,33,37,39,40]. Figure 2c exhibits the reduced variable plots for the nucleation and growth data given in Figure 2b.…”

“…Potentiostatic i-t transient experiment is mainly used for kinetic and mechanistic investigation. Nucleation and growth mechanisms of electropolymerization of thiophene [33][34][35][36], aniline [37][38][39], and pyrrole [40] have been investigated by using potentiostatic i-t transient technique. However, the nucleation and growth mechanism for the formation poly(MB) has not been studied until now.…”

Chronoamperometric and morphological investigation of nucleation and growth mechanism of poly(azure A) thin films

“…Surface properties of dye polymer thin films can be monitored by analyzing the nucleation and growth mechanism with morphological techniques and potentiostatic current density-time (j-t) transient experiments combined with theoretical nucleation modeling. Nucleation and growth mechanism of electropolymerization of various organic molecules [9,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] were investigated by using potentiostatic j-t transient technique until now. We previously studied the nucleation and growth mechanism of electropolymerization of dyes of pyronin Y and methylene blue (MB) [17,37].…”