Eco-Friendly Electrosynthesis of Cu-PANI-Pencil Composite: Enhanced Their Current Value, Acid Sensing, Click...

In this contribution, we report a straightforwardly and easily one-step synthesis of a small family of composites based in polyaniline grafted on HB2 graphite (PANI@UG) and their copper-doped derivatives (Cu₅₀PANI@UG_5-6). The PANI@UG composites were synthesized through electrochemical polymerization using cyclic voltammetry (CV) in three different acidic media: i) acetic acid (AcOH) at high and low concentration (12 and 1 M, using KCl as electrolytic support); ii) a mixture of AcOH and sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄, which have two roles: as electrolytic support and proton source) and iii) a mixture of acetonitrile (NCCH₃) and H₂SO₄, under atmospheric conditions. Once the best conditions were achieved, our next step was focused on obtaining the Cu₅₀PANI@UG_5-6 composites using a solution of aniline and CuSO₄ (50 mM) in AcOH:H₂SO₄ and NCCH₃:H₂SO₄ solutions, respectively. All composites were characterized by CV, FT-IR, SEM and MALDI-TOF experiments. So, the current value was enhanced for the Cu₅₀PANI@UG₆ composite, which have three potential catalytical applications in: i) HClO₄ acid sensing, ii) click chemistry and iii) sunlight drive photo-activation of H₂O₂.