%0 Journal Article
%T Synthesis and Optical Characterization of Sulfonated Polyaniline/Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube/Zinc Sulphide Nanocomposite
%A Rajesh K. Agrawalla
%A Rima Paul
%A Amit K. Chakraborty
%A Apurba K. Mitra
%J ISRN Nanotechnology
%D 2013
%R 10.1155/2013/253016
%X Polyaniline functionalized with sulfonate groups (SPANI) shows excellent solubility in water. Single-walled carbon nanotubes functionalized with carboxylic groups (f-SWCNTs) and then hybridized with freshly prepared zinc sulphide (ZnS) nanocrystals have been found to be good luminescent material with tuned emission properties. Nanocomposite of sulfonated polyaniline with embedded SWCNT/ZnS nanohybrid fibers has been prepared by a simple solution mixing process and characterized by using high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), X-ray diffractometry, Raman spectroscopy, FTIR spectroscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The study of optical properties by UV-vis absorption and photoluminescence spectroscopy reveals that the composite is a luminescent material of enhanced emission intensity in the visible region of the spectrum. 1. Introduction Since their discovery by Iijima [1] in 1991, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have shown remarkable physical properties [2]. Polyaniline (PANI) is the most studied conducting polymer in recent years due to its numerous potential applications. The CNTs have been extensively used as reinforcing fibers in PANI matrix to improve the characteristic optical and electrical properties of the polymer. The PANI/CNT composite finds application in biosensors [3], supercapacitors [4], metal-semiconductor devices [5], and actuators [6]. Zinc sulphide (ZnS) is a wide band gap compound semiconductor and has application as luminescent material [7, 8]. ZnS has been embedded in the matrix of PANI and the resulting PANI-ZnS composite has shown improved optical, electrical, and thermal properties. Dutta et al. [9] dispersed ZnS nanoparticles in PANI matrix and investigated the optical and electrical properties of the hybrid nanostructure. Pant et al. [10] studied the DC conductivity and dielectric constant of PANI-ZnS composite and found an increase in the values compared to those of pure PANI. Bompilwar et al. [11] made thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) of PANI-ZnS nanocomposite and concluded that the PANI-ZnS composites are thermally more stable than pure PANI. Singh et al. [12] prepared and characterized hybrid composite containing polyaniline, polyethylene glycol, and zinc sulfide. The photoluminescence characteristics of CNT/ZnS hybrid nanostructures have been studied by Paul et al. [13]. While there are published reports on CNT-based SPANI composites [14, 15], as well as ZnS-based PANI composites [9¨C12, 16], to the best of our knowledge, there is no published work to date on composites of SPANI embedded with SWCNT/ZnS
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn.nanotechnology/2013/253016/