Effects of alcoholic solvents on the conductivity of tosylate-doped poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT-OTs)

The effects of alcoholic solvents on the charge transport properties of tosylate-doped poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT-OTs) are investigated. The use of different alcoholic solvents in the oxidative chemical polymerization of 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) with iron(III)-p-tosylate led to a change in the electrical conductivity of PEDOT-OTs. For example, PEDOT-OTs prepared from methanol shows a conductivity of 20.1 S cm^-1 which is enhanced by a factor of 200 as compared to PEDOT-OTs prepared from hexanol. The variation of charge transport properties on the use of different alcoholic solvents is consistent with the data recorded by UV-visible and electrospin resonance (ESR) measurements. From XPS experiments, the PEDOT-OTs samples prepared from different alcoholic solvents were found to have almost the same doping level, suggesting that the number of charge carriers is not responsible for the change in conductivity. Supported by XRD results, it was found that the use of alcoholic solvents with shorter chain length induces more efficient packing of PEDOT chains. It is proposed that the alcoholic solvents associated with the counter ion of PEDOT via hydrogen bonding give rise to a change in the molecular ordering of PEDOT chains during the polymerization step, hence enhancing or depressing the inter-chain hopping rate of the resulting PEDOT-OTs.