Polymer coatings on conductive polypyrroles surface characterization by XPS, ToFSIMS, inverse gas chromatography and AFM

The study of PMMA adsorption on some conducting polypyrroles (PPys) using a variety of surface analytical techniques is reported. PMMA adsorption was monitored by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), time of flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy (ToF-SIMS) and inverse gas chromatography (IGC). XPS and ToF-SIMS permit to determine the surface composition of PMMA-coated PPy surfaces vs the solvent nature, temperature and the PPy dopant anion. Both techniques show that acid-base interactions may govern PMMA adsorption. IGC was used to determine the coating morphology by monitoring the surface energy of the coated PPy powders. It is suggested that homogeneity of PMMA coatings increases with decreasing solvent power. Preliminary atomic force microscopy (AFM) results on PMMA films cast on flat PPy surfaces confirm the IGC observation. copyright 1996 American Institute of Physics