Novel membrane composite structures based on conducting electroactive polymers

Conducting electroactive polymer (CEP) membranes have potential applications in many fields including metal ion separation and recovery. To date much of the work in this area has utilised traditional polymer films and membranes. While these materials are permeable towards metal ions, they have not exhibited great metal ion selectivity. Consequently this work has focused on the development of CEP materials with a high degree of permeability and metal ion selectivity. These included : 1. Conducting polymer membranes containing chelating agents as dopants. 2. Highly ordered, high surface area conducting polymer membranes (inverse opals and fibrillar membranes). 3. Conducting polymer/fabric composites. 4. Conducting polymer/thermoresponsive polyelectrolyte composites.