Oxidative formation of electroactive film from polypyridinyl complexes of ruthenium (II)-containing 3-(pyrrol-1-ylmethyl) pyridine

This work reports the oxidative electrochemical polymerization of the trans-[RuCl2(pmp)4] monomer, where pmp = 3-(pyrrol-1-ylmethyl) pyridine. Its galvanostatic and potentiodynamic electropolymerization produced strongly adhesive and electroactive films on platinum, palladium and optically transparent electrodes. The efficiency of the film formation indicated the existence of a strong correlation between the applied upper-limit value of the potential range applied and the number of cycles. Electrochemical studies show that the redox properties of poly-trans-[RuCl2(pmp)4] are very similar to the monomer trans-[RuCl2(pmp)4] in solution. Morphology and thickness measurements studies were performed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Microprobe X-ray dispersive energy analysis (EDAX) on the polymeric surface has also been carried out.