Sustainable approaches for polyaniline and polypirrole synthesis

Among the conducting organic polymers (COPs), polyaniline (PANI) and polypyrrole (PPY) are the most investigated. Even though many efforts have been done to overcome the traditional synthetic methods typically based on the use of strong stoichiometric oxidants, the growing environmental sensitivity and the necessity of pure products, especially in medical and biological fields, make the COPs “green” synthesis a topic of the utmost importance. Herein, we report a brief overview of our results in the synthesis of PANI and PPY operating under mild conditions, using H2O2 and O2 as the oxidants in the presence of different catalysts: colloidal Au nanoparticles (AuNPs), AuNPs/TiO2, AuNPs/C, metallic Cu, Cu salts and Fe3O4 NPs.