Synthesis and Characterization of Polyfurfural Nanoparticle

Abstract

In this paper, polyfurfural is synthesized by hydrochloric acid as catalyst in ethanol. The resulting polymer is characterized by FT/IR, EDS and XPS to determine the polymer structure. By SEM, the morphology of resulting polymer is studied. As found, the polymer consists of globule particles, which clump together and form clusters with average size of about 700 nm. Globule particles are composed of small spherical particles with an average size of 18.6 nm. Polymer thin film is fabricated by anchoring on glass; thin film has rough surface ( Rms  2.12  0.3 nm) and nanoparticles size of 17.8 nm. Based on x-ray diffraction, the crystallization ratio and the nanocrystals’ size (7.42 nm) are calculated. A new method for the determining nanoparticle size from x-ray diffraction data is proposed. The particle size is of 16.18 nm that is less than the size specified by SEM or AFM.