Polaron Disproportionation Charge Transport in a Conducting Redox Polymer

Herein we report a mechanistic study of the charge transport in poly-3-((2,5-hydroquinone)vinyl)-1H-pyrrole by conductance measurements at various temperatures performed in situ during doping of the polypyrrole backbone in contact with an aqueous electrolyte. Charge transport was found to occur by electron hopping with associated electron transfer activation energies in the range of 0.08-0.2 eV. In situ electron paramagnetic resonance experiments indicated polarons as the dominant charge carriers and the charge transport was found to follow a second-order dependence with respect to the number of accumulated charges. Based on the findings, we present a polaron comproportionation/disproportionation model for electron conduction in poly-3-((2,5-hydroquinone)vinyl)-1H-pyrrole, thus, providing a complement to existing models for charge propagation in conducting polymers.