Fabrication of Conductive Polyaniline Nanocomposites Based on Silica Nanoparticles via In-Situ Chemical Oxidative Polymerization Technique

Abstract

This work describes an efficient method to synthesis of polyaniline/silica (PANI/SiO₂) nanocomposites by in-situ oxidative polymerization of aniline in the presence of different amounts of SiO₂ nanoparticles. The obtained nanocomposites were characterized by UV-vis, FT-IR, XRD, TGA, and SEM techniques. The results showed that SiO₂ nanoparticles have been encapsulated by PANI with a strong effect on the morphology of nanocomposites. The thermal decomposition temperature of PANI in nanocomposites was lower than that of pure PANI. The electrical conductivity of nanocomposites at low SiO₂ content was higher than that of neat PANI, while with increasing contents of SiO₂, the conductivity decreased.

Keywords:

• nanocomposite
• conductive polymers
• polyaniline
• silica
• in situ polymerization