Novel Conducting Polymer-Heteropoly Acid Hybrid Material for Artificial Photosynthetic Membranes

Artificial photosynthetic (AP) approaches to convert and store solar energy will require membranes capable of conducting both ions and electrons while remaining relatively transparent and chemically stable. A new approach is applied herein involving previously described in situ chemical polymerization of electronically conducting poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) in the presence of proton conducting heteropoly acid (HPA) phosphomolybdic acid (PMA). The electrochemical behaviour of the PEDOT/PMA hybrid material was investigated and it was found that the conducting polymer (CP) is susceptible to irreversible oxidative processes at potentials where water is oxidized. This will be problematic in AP devices should the process occur in very close proximity to a conducting polymer-based membrane. It was found that PEDOT grants the system good electrical performance in terms of conductivity and stability over a large pH window; however, the presence of PMA was not found to provide sufficient proton conductivity. This was addressed in an additional study by tuning the ionic (and in turn, electronic) conductivity in creating composites with the proton-permselective polymer Nafion. It was found that a material of this nature with near-equal conductivity for optimal chemical conversion efficiency will consist of roughly three parts Nafion and one part PEDOT/PMA.