Conductive Polymers and Their Composites

This book provides a comprehensive overview on the recent significant advancements of conductive polymers and their composites in terms of conductive mechanism, fabrication strategies, important properties, and various promising applications. The corresponding knowledge was systematically compiled in the logical order and demonstrated as seven chapters. The special structure, influencing factors of the conductivity, the charge carrier transport model, the wettability and classical categories of the conductive polymers are narrated. Both conventional and novel strategies undertaken to fabricate the conductive polymers are introduced, as provided the overall master of the progress. In comparison with the bulk counterpart, nanostructured conductive polymers with different dimensions such as nanospheres, nano-networks, nanotubes and nanowire arrays are produced through distinct methods, thus presenting unique and distinct performance endowed by the nanometer scale. The combination of conductive polymers with other functional materials results in a number of the composites with improved properties by synergistic effect. The superior performance of conductive polymers and their composites greatly facilitates their development toward various important applications in the advanced and sophisticated fields such as biological utilization, energy storage and sensors. Due to their excellent biocompatibility, conductive polymers and their composites stand out to be useful in the biological field including tissue engineering, drug delivery and artificial muscle. To meet the urgent demand of the energy storage, conductive polymers and their composites play an important role in the devices including supercapacitors, solar cells and fuel cells. Finally, development of conductive polymers and their composites in the modern industry is greatly enhanced by their applications in smart sensors such as conductometric sensors, gravimetric sensors, optical sensors, chemical sensors and biosensors. This book has significant value for researchers, graduate students, and engineers carrying out the fundamental research or industrial production of conductive polymers and their composites.

Dr. Yanmin Wang obtained her Ph.D. from University of Sheffield (UK) in 2006. She has been working in Shandong University of Science and Technology. Her research interests concentrate on the preparation and properties of nanostructured conductive polymers and their composites, the application of conductive polymers and their composites in the field of microwave absorbing materials, anti-corrosive coating, and energy storage devices. She has published a professional book and more than 70 papers in the journals such as Advanced Functional Materials, Solar Cells and Solar Energy Materials, European Polymer Journal, Synthetic Metals.

Dr. Wei Feng is a full professor at School of Materials Science and Engineering of Tianjin University (China). He obtained his Ph.D. from the Xi'an Jiaotong University (China) in 2000. Then, he worked at Osaka University and Tsinghua University as a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) fellow and a postdoctoral researcher, respectively. His research interests include functional polymers and their composites. He was a recipient of the program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of Ministry of Education of China, the Winners of national science fund for Outstanding Young Scholars, State Council Expert for Special Allowance. He has authored or coauthored 190 peer-reviewed SCI publication and recently published articles/reviews in Chem. Soc. Rev., Nat. Commun., Prog. Mater. Sci., Adv. Mater., Adv. Sci., J. Mater. Chem. A etc., as a corresponding author. He holds over 60 Chinese patents and received the First Prize of Technical Innovation Award in University of Ministry of Education of China and Tianjin, respectively. As for the professional offices and services, he is serving as Chairman of Committee on thermoconductive Composite Materials, Chinese Society for Composite Materials.