Structure, thermal and dielectric insights of PVC/PVP/ZnFe2O4 polymer nanocomposites

In this paper, we study the doping of polymer blend from Polyvinyl chloride (PVC)/Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) with nano-zinc ferrite and verify the thermal and dielectric properties. The polymer nanocomposite samples have been prepared by the solution casting method. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform (FTIR) analysis gave information about the structure of these films. XRD gives the cubic crystal structure of ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles. The resulted average size of the nanocrystals was 15 nm. The SEM morphology of the surfaces supported the homogeneous distribution of the nanostructured zinc ferrite. FTIR spectra for the polymers blend (PVC/PVP) with ZnFe2O4 additives revealed different absorption bands. Three stages of thermal decomposition appeared in TGA data for all polymer blends. The values of activation energy, enthalpy, and Gibbs free energy gradually decreased with increasing zinc ferrite concentration. The dielectric data show that the more ZnFe2O4 added to the polymer, the lower the dielectric constant values. The interfacial polarization produced a decrease in the tan(δ) values with increasing the frequency. The AC conductivity increases gradually with the frequency for all samples. The DC conductivity values were decreased due to the increase in the ZnFe2O4-polymer resistance as the content of zinc ferrite increased up to 15.0 wt%.