Activation energy for polypyrrole oxidation: film thickness influence

The oxidation rates of polypyrrole films at different temperatures fit Arrhenius plots, allowing the obtention of the activation energy for the reaction. The activation energy increases for rising thicknesses, up to 4 μm, of the polymer film and decreases for rising film thicknesses. Those values include the constant chemical activation energy and the energy required to relax the polymeric structure allowing the entrance of anions from the solution. The existence of a maximum on the polymeric relaxation energy points to a parallel change on the film molecular structure during the electropolymerization time. The variation of the diffusion coefficient per degree of temperature for the counterions, as a function of the film thickness, is similar to that obtained for the activation energy. Diffusion coefficients were obtained from the electrochemical stretched exponential describing a range of relaxation behaviors in disordered and non-equilibrium systems.