Synthesis, Characterization and Study of Effect of Irradiation on Electronic Properties of Polyaniline Composite with Metal Complex of Co (III)

Abstract

The present work reports the synthesis of PANI composite with hexamminecobalt(III) chloride metal complex as dopant via in situ oxidative polymerization by ammonium persulphate in non-aqueous DMSO medium. The dopant metal complex has been synthesized by known method and characterized by using FTIR, XRD and SEM analysis. The synthesized PANI/[Co(NH₃)₆] Cl₃ composite was characterized by FTIR, XRD, UV-Vis and SEM techniques. FTIR of PANI composite showed its successful synthesis with the presence of some dopant peaks in its FTIR spectrum. XRD spectra of composite revealed its crystalline nature having almost same spectra as that of dopant metal complex with slight shift in the position of peaks. Electrical measurement of the composite was made using four probe conductivity meter and the thermal studies have been done by thermal gravimetric (TG) technique. The results showed improvement in the thermal stability of PANI composite together with increase in its conductance, thereby making it a possible future material for high temperature application purposes. Electronic properties of the composite were investigated using UV-Vis spectroscopy which revealed decrease in the energy band gap of the composite on irradiation. This is attributed to the distortion of polymer chains on exposure to radiations, which results in decrease in conjugation and hence increases in band gap energy.

Keywords:
polyaniline (PANI); PANI composite; dopant metal complex