Preface

In recent years, great focus has been placed upon polymer thin films. These polymer thin films are important in many technological applications, ranging from coatings and adhesives to organic electronic devices, including sensors and detectors. Polymers can be prepared using chemical and/or electrochemical methods of polymerization. There are a few advantages of electrosynthesis over chemical methods. These include, but are not limited to: the wide range of oxidation and reduction reactions possible, the possibility of reaching very high levels of product purity and selectivity, and significantly less energy requirement. The process of electropolymerization leads to simple and reproducible formations of polymer films, which led to a broad material diversity of applications.

Nowadays, electrochemistry plays an important role in a wide number of fundamental research and applied areas. The great development in electropolymerization is due to the growing interest in synthesis of conducting polymers, which can be synthetically tailored to produce the desired electronic answer. The electropreparation of electroactive polymers is of major importance for their use in different electrochemical systems, such as batteries, electrocatalysis materials, sensor devices. Additionally, they can be used in fields of organic electronic devices, that is, light emitting diodes (OLEDs), field transistors (OFETs), and solar cells (OSCs). Electrochemical polymerization is preferable, especially if the polymeric product is intended for use as polymer thin films, because electrogeneration of films has the advantage of convenient one-step polymer synthesis. This allows control over the film thickness, an important parameter for fabrication of optoelectronic devices. Moreover, it was demonstrated that it is possible to modify the material properties by parameter control of the electrodeposition process, including the kind of solution in which the polymerization process takes place. It should be stressed that electrochemistry is an excellent tool, not only for synthesis, but also for characterization and application of various types of materials.

This book provides a timely overview of a current state of knowledge regarding the use of electropolymerization for new materials preparation, including conducting polymers and various possibilities of applications. The chapters of this book have been contributed by experienced and internationally recognized scientists. The material is presented in ten chapters.

The first chapter is devoted to electropreparation of two kinds of polysilanes, that is, one with a double bond and the second with attached zirconium. Such modified polymers let to obtain C/C composite with significantly enhanced anti-oxidative ablation. Chapter 2 concerns the study of electropolymerization, kinetics, and mechanisms of ortho-chloro-substituted phenol and catechol. Moreover, the chosen properties and possibility of the application of synthesized polymers as pH sensors, and as absorbent of methylene blue dye for purification of waste water were examined. Chapter 3 presents an overview of original methods of porphyrins electropolymerization, as a promising approach to elaborate new functional materials. Chapter 4 deals with all important aspects of electrochemical polymerization of aniline. Chapter 5 is devoted to electrosynthesis of novel conductive polymers based on 5-amino-2-naphthalenesulfonic acid, and luminol and evaluation of obtained polymers properties. Chapters 6, 7 and 8 concern polypyrroles (PPy). The effect of 2,5 di-(2-thenyl)-pyrrole on electropolymerization and electrochemical behavior of pyrrole was investigated in Chapter 6, while in Chapter 7, electrochemical methods for PPy composites preparation together with their properties and applications, and electrochemical devices are described. On the other hand, Chapter 8 presents polypyrrole films prepared by electropolymerization as a new material for organic soft actuators. Chapter 9 is a review devoted to electrochemical sensors based on electrogenerated films mainly for analytical purpose, that is, for clinical and environmental monitoring. Chapter 10 concerns the investigations of peptides stability in microarrays in the case that is grafted on the gold surface of the biochip. This is done by electrochemical copolymerization of pyrrole-peptide conjugates, or by electrodeposition of diazonium-peptide adducts. Thus, the topics addressed in this book present wide range of utilization of electrochemistry for both materials synthesis and their applications.

Finally, I would like to thank all the contributors who helped make this work possible.

**Dr. Ewa Schab-Balcerzak** Centre of Polymer and Carbon Materials Polish Academy of Sciences Poland
