Polypyrrole (PPy) as a conducting polymer has potential applications in electrical and electronic devices. This book therefore aimed to produce novel "polypyrrole fibres via the development of nanostructured conducting polypyrrole" by fibre spinning of PPy and to investigate the formed fibres for applications such as actuators, e-textiles, batteries, sensors and biomedical areas. As a result polypyrrole fibres have been produced for the first time. Subsequent work sought to improve the properties of these first generation PPy fibres by increasing the molecular weight, addition of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and addition of a supporting polymer (alginate). The use of the host polymer also enabled a new fibre spinning method to be developed that included an in situ polymerization process. The highest conductivity and Young's modulus of any conducting polymer based fibre reported to date was obtained by incorporating PPy into a CNT yarn. In summary, a range of novel fibres PPy materials have been developed for possible use in applications such as actuators, sensors, artificial muscles, batteries and biomedical applications.

Smart materials are one of frontier technologies in engineering and manufacturing. A smart material is capable of recognising appropriate environmental stimuli, processing the information arising from the stimuli, and responding to it in an appropriate manner and time frame. It is well known that inherently conducting polymers (ICPs) provide some interesting possibilities in this regard. ICPs are polymers capable of conducting electricity and have the ability to sense and actuate, leading many researchers to envisage "intelligent polymer systems" based on ICPs. Fabrication of conducting polymers in different forms is necessary to achieve such smart materials system. Fibre spinning for example, can bring new opportunities to develop ICPs. Conducting polymer fibres are likely to be important for electronic textiles, actuators and biomedical applications, as they allow the possibility to incorporate desirable features such as chemical sensing or actuation that are not feasible other synthetic fibres. This book aims to produce novel "polypyrrole fibres" via the development of nanostructured conducting polypyrrole suitable for fabricating into fibres.