Black Gold - Conducting Polymers
Conducting
polymers had a rather inauspicious start in electrochemistry: They
were first called "The Black Crap
that Fouled My Electrode" by researchers attempting to study the electrochemistry of aniline
compounds. In 2000, conducting polymers (such as the polyaniline the
early electrochemists produced) earned three scientists some
gold
- a Nobel
Prize in Chemistry!
To
Electrochemistry and Beyond! 
It is enlightening to see the bio-s of this winning trio: One is a chemist (MacDiarmid, U of Penn), one is a physicist (Heeger, UCSB), and one is a materials scientist (Shirakawa, U of Tsukuba, Japan). The study of conducting polymers cuts across traditional discipline boundaries.
Conducting polymers hold the promise of plastic wires, all-plastic light-weight batteries (check your cell phone!!), cheap and colorful light emitting diodes, and large, bright displays for signs or TV screens.
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If you want to find out more about conducting polymers, you might want to start with Nobel Prize winner MacDiarmid's Scientific American article (RB Kaner & AG MacDiarmid, "Plastics That Conduct Electricity," Scientific American 1988, February, 106 ).
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