TY - JOUR
T1 - Polysketch Pen
T2 - Drawing from Materials Chemistry to Create Interactive Art and Sensors Using a Polyaniline Ink
AU - Prestowitz, Luke C.O.
AU - Emery, Jonathan D.
AU - Huang, Jiaxing
N1 - Funding Information:
L.C.O.P. thanks his teaching assistant of 337 Conducting Polymers, Dr. Andrew Koltonow, for instructing the lab portion and his lab partner Daniel Hickox-Young in developing the pen. L.C.O.P. was supported by a teaching assistant fellowship from the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, supplemented by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DMR1747776). J.H. and J.D.E. were on Dean’s support from the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. J.H. also acknowledges an earlier grant from the NU Alumnae Foundation that enabled him to explore novel teaching activities. L.P. and J.H. were participants of the 2018 JUAMI program, which has been largely supported by the National Science Foundation through the Division of Materials Research (DMR- 1756245). We thank Dr. Denise Drane from Northwestern Universities Searle Center for Advanced Learning, for conducting the JUAMI survey.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2021/6/8
Y1 - 2021/6/8
N2 - Writing instruments, such as pens, are ubiquitous in the classroom, but their functionality is largely for one purpose: they are used to represent ideas and record information on paper. However, by replacing the conventional ink in a pen with easy-to-synthesize conducting polymer-based inks, it is possible to change a simple writing utensil into a materials processing tool that can create circuits, sensors, and potentially other optoelectronic devices. The Polysketch pen is a modified ballpoint pen that contains a conductive polyaniline ink that can be synthesized safely by high school and undergraduate students in a 1-3 hour laboratory setting. The synthesis and formulation of the ink and the construction of the pen expose students to nanomaterial synthesis, chemical/material purification, and functional design with a specific goal: producing an appropriately viscous, fast-drying ink with a suitable loading level of polyaniline for conductive properties. The Polysketch pen leaves conductive traces on paper, which can be used to draw simple circuits or construct sensors responding to mechanical strains or ambient chemical species. This activity has the objective of introducing materials-relevant polymer synthesis into high school and undergraduate laboratories while introducing concepts in conductive polymers such as doping/dedoping and percolation in conductive networks. The activity is constructed such that students have the opportunity to explore processing-structure-properties-performance relationships by optimizing ink formulation. Most importantly, students will ultimately arrive at a tangible, versatile product and tool that enables them to explore other types of interactive devices and art to "trace a line of their creation".
AB - Writing instruments, such as pens, are ubiquitous in the classroom, but their functionality is largely for one purpose: they are used to represent ideas and record information on paper. However, by replacing the conventional ink in a pen with easy-to-synthesize conducting polymer-based inks, it is possible to change a simple writing utensil into a materials processing tool that can create circuits, sensors, and potentially other optoelectronic devices. The Polysketch pen is a modified ballpoint pen that contains a conductive polyaniline ink that can be synthesized safely by high school and undergraduate students in a 1-3 hour laboratory setting. The synthesis and formulation of the ink and the construction of the pen expose students to nanomaterial synthesis, chemical/material purification, and functional design with a specific goal: producing an appropriately viscous, fast-drying ink with a suitable loading level of polyaniline for conductive properties. The Polysketch pen leaves conductive traces on paper, which can be used to draw simple circuits or construct sensors responding to mechanical strains or ambient chemical species. This activity has the objective of introducing materials-relevant polymer synthesis into high school and undergraduate laboratories while introducing concepts in conductive polymers such as doping/dedoping and percolation in conductive networks. The activity is constructed such that students have the opportunity to explore processing-structure-properties-performance relationships by optimizing ink formulation. Most importantly, students will ultimately arrive at a tangible, versatile product and tool that enables them to explore other types of interactive devices and art to "trace a line of their creation".
KW - Conductivity
KW - First-Year Undergraduate/General
KW - General Public
KW - Hands-On Learning/Manipulatives
KW - High School/Introductory Chemistry
KW - Laboratory Instruction
KW - Organic Chemistry
KW - Polymerization
KW - Second-Year Undergraduate
KW - Upper-Division Undergraduate
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U2 - 10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c01330
DO - 10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c01330
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85104921435
VL - 98
SP - 2055
EP - 2061
JO - Journal of Chemical Education
JF - Journal of Chemical Education
SN - 0021-9584
IS - 6
ER -