Polypyrrole electrode with a greater electroactive surface electrochemically polymerized in plasmon-activated water

Conventionally, electrochemical polymerization of polypyrrole (PPy) was generally performed in deionized (DI) water-based electrolyte. In this work, an innovative and facile strategy to substantially enhance the electroactive surface areas of electrochemically polymerized PPy is proposed by using plasmon-activated water (PAW)-based electrolyte. Compared to the DI water-based system, the prepared PPy with higher electron transfer rate and more-reversible redox performance was observed by using PAW-based system. In addition, a greater electroactive surface area of three-dimensional PPy was obtained with PAW-based electrolyte. These distinct properties of PPy electrodes prepared with PAW were responsible for their better performances in supercapacitors (with ca. 25.2% increased capacitance) and sensors (with ca. 50.0% increased sensitivity), compared to those prepared with DI water. These encouraging findings show the potential of PPy prepared with newly developed PAW for application to PPy-related devices to further enhance various performances.