Nanofiber Seeding is the process to control the bulk morphology

Morphology (biology)

In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....

 of chemically synthesized

Chemical synthesis

In chemistry, chemical synthesis is purposeful execution of chemical reactions to get a product, or several products. This happens by physical and chemical manipulations usually involving one or more reactions...

 electronic organic polymers.

Description

A new synthetic approach, called nanofiber seeding, was developed to control the bulk morphology of chemically synthesized electronic organic polymers. Bulk quantities of nanofiber

Nanofiber

Nanofibers are defined as fibers with diameters less than 1000 nm nanometers. They can be produced by interfacial polymerization and electrospinning...

s of conducting polymers such as polyaniline

Polyaniline

Polyaniline is a conducting polymer of the semi-flexible rod polymer family. Although the compound itself was discovered over 150 years ago, only since the early 1980s has polyaniline captured the intense attention of the scientific community. This is due to the rediscovery of its high electrical...

, can be synthesized in one step without the need for any template.

Conventional synthesis yields polyaniline

Polyaniline

Polyaniline is a conducting polymer of the semi-flexible rod polymer family. Although the compound itself was discovered over 150 years ago, only since the early 1980s has polyaniline captured the intense attention of the scientific community. This is due to the rediscovery of its high electrical...

 having granular morphology. However, if the conventional reaction is seeded by 2-4 mg (seed quantities) of added nanofibers, the bulk morphology changes dramatically from granular to nano-fibrillar. When the reaction is seeded by vanadium pentoxide nanofibers, this method can be extended to all major classes of conducting polymers, including polypyrrole

Polypyrrole

Polypyrrole is a chemical compound formed from a number of connected pyrrole ring structures. For example a tetrapyrrole is a compound with four pyrrole rings connected. Methine-bridged cyclic tetrapyrroles are called porphyrins. Polypyrroles are conducting polymers of the rigid-rod polymer host...

, PEDOT

Pedot

Pedot is the eleventh album of the Finnish rock band CMX. "Pedot" means "Beasts" in Finnish.The opening track "Eteläisen tähtitaivaan kartoitus" breaks a CMX tradition of starting their albums with powerful rock songs. It is a minimalistic piano-based ballad with no drums...

 and polythiophene

Polythiophene

Polythiophenes result from the polymerization of thiophenes, a sulfur heterocycle, that can become conducting when electrons are added or removed from the conjugated π-orbitals via doping....

etc.