A comparative study of electrochemical, optical properties and electropolymerization behavior of thiophene- and furan-substituted diketopyrrolopyrrole

Electropolymerization is a promising approach to produce thin films of active organic conjugated materials on a desired conducting substrate. In this work, an electropolymerization study has been carried out on two diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP)-based monomers 2,5-bis(2-butyloctyl)-3,6-di(furan-2-yl)pyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole-1,4(2H,5H)-dione (BO-DPPF) and 2,5-bis(2-butyloctyl)-3,6-di(thiophen-2-yl)pyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole-1,4(2H,5H)-dione (BO-DPPT). These monomers consist of thiophene and furan heterocyclic moieties attached to a DPP core with a common solubilizing alkyl chain (butyl-octyl). The properties of these monomers were analyzed via differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetric analysis, UV-Vis spectrometry (UV) and photoluminescence. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) studies indicate the presence of irreversible oxidation and reduction reactions. The electropolymerization of BO-DPPF and BO-DPPT electron-deficient monomers to form polymer films on a glassy carbon electrode is achieved by applying a potential between -2 V and 2 V versus ferrocene for up to 50 cycles. The properties of the polymers were investigated using the cyclic voltammetry (CV) technique.