The research group of Professor Nurxat Nuraje, Professor Salimgerey Adilov, Professor Tri Pham, and Professor Rafael Luque from the University of Cordoba (Spain) have successfully developed a strategic synthesis method for making 2D and 3D conductive polymers (plastics capable of conducting electricity) and their composites. This work was recently published in Advanced Materials, which is regarded as the most prestigious journal in the field of Materials Science, with a current impact factor of 32.08.
The novel method can also synthesize other conducting polymers to create 2D, 3D, and composites. The morphology of polypyrrole, a particular kind of conducting polymer, was controlled in this study from 0D to 2D and 3D structures. The 2D nanosheet morphology gave the highest electrical conductivity at 219 S/cm, the record high conductivity for polypyrrole. This scalable synthesis technique will open up new opportunities for conducting polymer applications in various sectors, including nanomedicine, energy storage, polymer solar cells, and LEDs.
The research presented in this article was primarily completed by graduate students and researchers from the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, School of Engineering and Digital Science. This work was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan under project №AP09258910 and Faculty Development Competitive Research Grant of Nazarbayev University under project № 021220FD4551.
Here, we can proudly list the names of the graduate students and researchers who performed the experimental work in the following order:
Guldana Zhigerbayeva (3rd year Ph.D. student, Department of CHME SEDS),
Perizat Askar (2nd year Master Student, Department of CHME SEDS),
Yelriza Yeszhan (2nd year Master’s Student, Department of CHME SEDS),
Dr. Munziya Abutalip, senior researcher of RESMS lab, NLA, and a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Chemistry, SSH,
Dana Kanzhigitova, a research assistant at the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, SEDS,
Dr. Nurxat Nuraje, Associate Professor, Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, SEDS, Head of Renewable Energy Systems and Materials Science (RESMS) lab, National Laboratory Astana,
Dr. Salimgerey Adilov, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, SSH,
Dr. Tri Pham, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, SSH.