Synthesis characterization and physical properties investigation of Polyaniline/SiO2 nanocomposities

Nanotechnology is one of the most popular research and development fields in almost all scientific branches. This fields include polymer science in a way that only nano polymer branch has lots of different topics including micro electronics(now referred to as nano electronics) which is used to design instruments below 100 nm diameters, drug delivery by nano particles, nano polymeric catalyst, electro cells. Polyaniline (PANI) is typical representative of conducting polymer [1,2]. In this research polyaniline (PANI) encapsulated with SiO2 nano particles to form PANI/SiO2 nano composite. This was done by oxidizing of aniline by hydrochloride with ammonium proxo disulfate in presence of different amounts of SiO2 nano particles. The obtained composites characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscope (SEM), thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA). Conductivity of nano composites was also investigated by four point probe technique. TGA results suggest that the trend of degradation curve of nano composites is similar to that of polyaniline, but their composition temperature have been decreased. Conductivity results show that by increasing SiO2 content in composite structure, conductivity increase slightly. The electronic micrograp shows the PANI/SiO2 nano composites form spherical structures. The SEM image of a broken sphere clearly reveals the hollow figure of the spherical structures. FTIR spectra shows that PANI, SiO2 nano particles are not simply blended or mixed up, but a strong interaction exists at the interface of nano-SiO2 and PANI.