23.2 Materials

CPs have tunable physicochemical and electrical properties and can be surface en­

gineered by antibodies and other biological moieties according to the need of their ap­

plication. Further, they can be altered through various cues such as electrical, pH,

thermal, electromechanical, etc. CPs are used as flexible strain sensors due to their ex­

treme sensitivity in capacitance or resistance change [5]. One of the important factors for

deformable applications is the tensile modulus, where the CP can be tuned by composite

biomaterials to minimize the interfacial stresses such as between layers of the material or

between the device-tissue interactions. Among the CPs, this chapter focused on poly

(thiophene) (PTh), poly(aniline) (PANi), poly(pyrrole) (PPy), polyacetylene (PA), poly

(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene) (PEDOT), and poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) that are a

few of the well-explored techniques. Figure 23.2 explains fundamental factors to fabricate

flexible bioelectronics and their structural design.

23.2.1 PTh

Due to its aromatic nature, thiophene, an organosulfur heterocyclic compound, offers the

scope of many substitution reactions. PTh finds enormous usage in organic electronic

devices due to its mechanical flexibility, low-cost synthesis, high electrical conductivity

(10³ S/cm), environmental and thermal stability under both doped and dedoped states,

good optical property, and processability. The rigidity of PTh materials is ascribed to its

FIGURE 23.1

Illustrative image of the overall view.

Conducting Polymer-Based Biocomposites

375