Much attention has been focused on conductive polymers in recent years for being electroactive materials with applications in a great variety of fields such as organic electronic devices, batteries, sensors and actuators and capacitors. Two of them, polypyrrole (PPy) and poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiphene) (PEDOT) stand out due to their biocompatibility and their promising properties as biomaterials, especially as bioelectrodes. Their low surface electrochemical potential (they do not need the application of high potentials to be modified), their high environmental stability, their physical flexibility and their mixed ionic-electronic conductivity, makes them excellent candidates for the field of tissue engineering, especially as substrates for neural growth. Their electroactivity is the crucial point that could make of them important materials in neural prosthetic devices and functional electrostimulation, where conductivity and charge capacity storage are crucial. The possibility of modulating the starting material oxidation state by electrochemical intercalation of ions present in biological media and therefore its acting potential may help modulate its effect on neural adhesion, viability and growth. Moreover, being able to intercalate anions during their synthesis, which will form part of the polymer structure, allows us to obtain a material with different characteristics depending on the counterion used. Thus, it is possible to have a polymer containing beneficial biomolecules for neurons to function, as well as other compounds that can increase the charge capacity of the material, improve the adhesion, and other material features. The possibility of forming hybrid materials consisting of conducting polymers and other compounds allows us to combine the properties of both, and also to create new materials with novel properties arising from the synergy established. In this work, thin layers of PPy and PEDOT were synthesized with anions of different sizes, among them large molecules such as surfactants, which would guarantee the cation exchange of the materials during electrochemical modulation. Subsequently, the synthesis of thin films with biomolecules was performed to identify possible improvements in terms of cell cultures with the addition of these species. Finally, the interaction of the polymers with various compounds of iridium was studied through the formation of hybrids of both materials. All synthesized materials were characterized structurally in depth, through techniques such as ATR and XPS; microstructurally with techniques such as AFM and contact angle, and electrically and electrochemically with cyclic voltammetries, quartz electrochemical microbalance and impedance spectroscopy. The behavior of these materials as substrates for neuronal growth through mice embryos cortical neuron cultures was studied as well, and these results were correlated with the physico-chemical features found.
Materiales electroactivos poliméricos e híbridos como sustrato de crecimiento neuronal
Moral Vico, A. J. (Author). 23 Jul 2012
Student thesis: Doctoral thesis
Student thesis: Doctoral thesis