Editing Conductive polymer (section)

{{Short description|Organic polymers that conduct electricity}}
{{about|bulk applications of conductive polymers|single-molecule electronics|Molecular scale electronics}}

[[File:ConductivePoly.png|400px|thumb|Chemical structures of some conductive polymers. From top left clockwise: [[polyacetylene]]; [[Poly(p-phenylene vinylene)|polyphenylene vinylene]]; [[polypyrrole]] (X = NH) and [[polythiophene]] (X = S); and [[polyaniline]] (X = NH) and [[Poly(p-phenylene sulfide)|polyphenylene sulfide]] (X = S).]]

'''Conductive polymers''' or, more precisely, '''intrinsically conducting polymers (ICPs)''' are [[organic polymer]]s that [[Electrical conductance|conduct]] [[electricity]].<ref name="Inzelt-introduction">{{ cite book | series = Monographs in Electrochemistry | title = Conducting Polymers: A New Era in Electrochemistry | first = György | last = Inzelt | editor-first = F. | editor-last = Scholz | publisher = Springer | date = 2008 | pages = 1–6 | chapter = Chapter 1: Introduction | isbn = 978-3-540-75929-4 | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=4rFDAzo5lPQC&pg=PA264}}</ref><ref>Conducting Polymers, Editor: Toribio Fernandez Otero, Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge 2016, https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/ebook/978-1-78262-374-8</ref> Such compounds may have metallic conductivity or can be [[semiconductor]]s. The main advantage of conductive polymers is that they are easy to process, mainly by [[Dispersion (chemistry)|dispersion]]. Conductive polymers are generally not [[thermoplastic]]s, ''i.e.'', they are not thermoformable. But, like insulating polymers, they are organic materials. They can offer high electrical conductivity but do not show similar mechanical properties to other commercially available polymers. The electrical properties can be fine-tuned using the methods of [[organic synthesis]]<ref name=Ullmann>{{cite book | doi = 10.1002/14356007.a21_429 | chapter = Polymers, Electrically Conducting | title = Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry | date = 2000 | last1 = Naarmann | first1 = Herbert | isbn = 3527306730}}</ref> and by advanced dispersion techniques.<ref name=nalwa/>