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Electrochemical degradation of polyfuran in wet acetonitrile and aqueous solutions
Author(s) -
Wan XiaoBo,
Li Liang,
He JinBo,
Zhou DongShan,
Xue Gi,
Wang TianWei
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of applied polymer science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.575
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-4628
pISSN - 0021-8995
DOI - 10.1002/app.11343
Subject(s) - aqueous solution , acetonitrile , fourier transform infrared spectroscopy , cyclic voltammetry , raman spectroscopy , materials science , degradation (telecommunications) , electrochemistry , polymer chemistry , chemistry , chemical engineering , organic chemistry , electrode , computer science , engineering , telecommunications , physics , optics
The degradation of polyfuran in a wet acetonitrile solution and in an aqueous solution has been investigated with a cyclic voltammetry technique, along with Fourier transform infrared and Fourier transform Raman spectroscopy techniques. Infrared spectroscopy shows that the main defects that exist in polyfuran after cycling in dried acetonitrile are mainly saturated CH structures, whereas those after cycling in an aqueous solution are mainly carbonyl groups in the polymer chain. This may be because polyfuran can undergo degradation through a crosslinking mechanism in a dried acetonitrile solution, whereas in an aqueous solution, it undergoes degradation through a nucleophilic attack mechanism. Raman spectroscopy shows that not all the furan rings are involved in the degradation process, although the electrochemical activity of polyfuran is totally lost in an aqueous solution after only one cycle. The sites that are sensitive to the degradation process may be the electrochemically active sites, that is, the positively charged sites in polyfuran chains. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 86: 3160–3165, 2002