Polypyrrole-Fe[sub]2O[sub]3 nanocomposites with high dielectric constant : in situ chemical polymerisation

Bashir, T., Shakoor, A., Ahmed, E., Niaz, N. A., Akhtar, Muhammad Saeed, Raza, Muhammad Rafi, Malik, Mohammad Azad and Foot, Peter J.S. (2018) Polypyrrole-Fe[sub]2O[sub]3 nanocomposites with high dielectric constant : in situ chemical polymerisation. Polymers and Polymer Composites, 26(3), pp. 233-241. ISSN (print) 0967-3911

Abstract

Novel nanocomposites of polypyrrole (PPy) dispersed with iron oxide (Fe2O3) particles have been synthesised by in-situ chemical oxidative polymerisation of pyrrole in the presence of ammonium persulfate (APS) as an oxidising agent. The concentration of Fe2O3 was varied between 10-50wt% of PPy. The simultaneous polymerisation of pyrrole and oxide addition led to the complete synthesis of nanocomposites. A maximum dielectric constant of ~28500 was observed at 20wt% of Fe2O3. The nanocomposites were characterised by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). XRD analysis confirmed the structure and crystallinity of the nanocomposites, and a strong interaction between PPy and the Fe2O3 nanoparticles was observed by FTIR technique. SEM and TEM images showed that Fe2O3 particles had been coated with PPy by establishing a network during the polymerisation process. The values of dielectric constant were obtained from capacitance measurements. The value of dielectric constant for nanocomposites with 20wt% of Fe2O3 was observed to be almost 12 times that of the pure PPy matrix. The high value of dielectric constant indicated a high packing density of Fe2O3 particles in the PPy matrix. These nanocomposites have potential applications in electronic or biomedical devices.

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