Improvement of polypyrrole and carbon nanotube co-deposition techniques for high charge-transfer electrodes

Both carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and polypyrrole (PPy) have been investigated as materials for manufacturing high charge-transfer electrodes due to their outstanding performances. The combination of their complementary properties via an electrochemical co-deposition route has been already shown to achieve interesting results. In this work, PPy and chemically-functionalized multi walled CNTs (COOH-MWCNT) were potentiostatically, galvanostatically and potentiodynamically electrodeposited from an aqueous solution to form a nanocomposite on the surface of a variety of metal electrodes. A study of the, influence of experimental parameters such as temperature, current, and growth rate in the different electrodeposition methods Was performed. The electronic and electrochemical properties of the nanocomposite films have been studied by cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, while a morphological study has been performed via scanning electron microscopy. A comparison between the different techniques and guidelines for best results will be reported. (C) 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim