Conducting polymers-based electrochemical platforms: from biosensing to energy storage

Abstract

Since its discovery in the 80´s, Conducting Polymers have been extensively employed for the preparation of electrode materials in different applications from chemical and biochemical sensing to energy storage. Some of the comparative advantages of these materials are the facility of synthesis, low cost and low density. Particularly, their wide-spread applications in biosensing devices are based on the possibility of providing non-denaturing environments for proteins and other biomolecules and the capacity of acting as physicochemical transductors of chemical signals into electrical out-puts or simply mediating the electron transfer between the biomolecules and the base electrode. On the other hand, the polyelectrolytic nature of conducting polymers and the origin of charges along the polymer chains depending on the applied potential render huge pseudocapacitances, making these materials adequate for the construction of energy storage devices, such as supercapacitors.