Chemical and electrochemical grafting of polythiophene onto poly(methyl methacrylate), and its electrospun nanofibers with gelatin

For the first time, chemical and electrochemical grafting of polythiophene (PTh) onto poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) via a combination of atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), and Grignard reaction is reported. For this purpose, a PMMA was synthesized by ATRP technique, and then reacted with 2-thienylmagnesium bromide to afford a thiophene-functionalized PMMA macromonomer. The synthesized macromonomer was subsequently used in chemical and electrochemical oxidation copolymerization methods with thiophene monomer to produce PMMA-g-PTh copolymer. In addition, the solutions of the chemically synthesized PMMA-g-PTh copolymer, and gelatin was electrospun to produce uniform, and conductive nanofibers. The chemical structures of all samples as representatives were characterized by means of Fourier transform infrared, and ¹H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopies. The electroactivity behaviors of the synthesized samples were verified under cyclic voltammetric conditions, and their conductivities were determined using the four-probe technique.