Electrical conductivity studies on the nanocomposites of Poly(aniline) with various initiator and oxide nanoparticles

Aniline was polymerized using two different initiators such as peroxy disulphate (PDS), and potassium dichromate (PDC) at different experimental condition. The prepared polymer nanocomposites were characterized by four probe method. The electrical conductivity of conducting polymer nano-composite was analyzed for various initiator concentration and different weight percentage of nano-materials. The higher electrical conductivity (6.33 x 10(-3) S cm(-1)) was found in the optimized polymer nanocomposites PANI/(0.05 wt% V2O5) with PDS initiator. The polymer nanocomposite was characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR). Thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA) is used to estimate the thermal degradation of polymer nanocomposites. HRTEM report reveals that the V2O5 has layered structure with 25 nm in size. However, the PDS initiated system represented higher electrical conductivity than the PDC initiator.