Electrorheological Response of Novel polyaniline-Fe₂O₃ Nanocomposite Particles

ABSTRACT

A novel polyaniline-Fe₂O₃ (PANI-Fe₂O₃) nanocomposite has been successfully prepared by oxidative in situ polymerization of aniline in the presence of iron nanoparticles. The characterization suggested the interactions between Fe₂O₃ and PANI. The PANI-Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles were used as a novel dispersed phase of electrorheological (ER) fluid and the evaluation results revealed that the yield stress of the new ER fluid can reach up to 10 kPa at 4.3 kV/mm, much higher than those of the ER fluids using PANI, Fe₂O₃ or their mixture as dispersed phase, confirming that the interactions between Fe₂O₃ and PANI are responsible for the high performance.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Electrorheological fluid
• nanocomposite
• polyaniline
• spectroscopy

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Prof. Guofang Zhang for his generous help and useful discussion.