High Electrical Conductivity, Thermal Stability and Gas Sensing Studies on Silver-Polyaniline Nanocomposite

Abstract

Received: 09/Mar/2019, Accepted: 04/Apr/2019, Online: 30/Apr/2019 AbstractThis paper reports the synthesis of Polyaniline-Silver (Pani/Ag) nanocomposites by an in-situ chemical polymerization method using ammonium persulphate (APS) as an oxidizing agent. The prepared Pani/Ag nanocomposite were characterized by XRD, EDAX, FESEM, TEM, TGA, UV-vis spectroscopy. The XRD patterns indicated that the crystalline phase of Ag is cubic with average crystallite size of 26 nm. UV–vis spectroscopy analysis indicated that the Ag nanoparticles have some effect on the Pani matrix. The TGA result showed that thermal stability of the nanocomposite was increased after incorporation of Ag nanoparticles. Pani/Ag nanocomposite showed superior DC conductivity when compared to pure Pani. The Pani/Ag nanocomposite also showed excellent chloroform sensing behaviour than pure Pani, which might be due to increase in the surface area of Pani in the presence of Ag nanoparticles.