Fabrication of Bacterial Cellulose-Based ATO-PPy Nanocomposites as Flexible Conductive Materials

An ideal flexible conductive material, bacterial cellulose-based antimony tin oxide-polypyrrole (BC-ATO-PPy), was fabricated in this study. The BC-ATO film was synthesized in situ along with the growth of the BC film, and then PPy was coated uniformly onto the as-prepared film. The structural characterization results showed that BC-ATO-PPy was successfully fabricated. The electrochemical properties of these as-synthesized composites (BC-ATO-PPy, BC-PPy, BC-ATO) were better than those of pure BC. A cyclic voltammetry (CV) test showed that the conductivities of BC-ATO, BC-PPy and BC-ATO-PPy were increased to 10.236 S/cm, 11.636 S/cm and 16.532 S/cm, respectively. The electrochemical impedance spectra (EIS) test showed that the resistance values of BC-ATO, BC-PPy and BC-ATO-PPy decreased to 83.6 Ω, 63.2 Ω and 32.4 Ω, respectively. Additionally, the specific capacitance also increased from 7.47 F/g for BC to 681.3 F/g for BC-ATO-PPy, 563.9 F/g for BC-ATO and 302.2 F/g for BC-PPy. The bending test showed that BC-ATO-PPy has stable CV curves and conductivity, suggesting that it is an excellent flexible conductive material. These results suggested that these as-synthesized nanomaterials, especially BC-ATO-PPy, are ideal flexible conductive materials.