Preparation and characterization of polymer nanocomposites based on PVDF/PVC doped with graphene nanoparticles

Abstract

Novel nanocomposites based on PVDF/PVC blend containing graphene oxide nanoparticles (GO) were prepare using sonicator. IR analysis revealed that the addition of GO prompts a crystal transformation of α-phase of PVDF. The change of the structural before and after adding GO to PVDF/PVC were studied by X-ray diffraction. A decrease in activation energy gap from UV data was observed with increasing GO content, implying a variation of reactivity as a result of reaction extent. The variation of ε′ with frequency is nearly the same as that of ε″. At higher frequencies, the decrease of both ε′ and ε″ becomes nearly constant. The dispersion at lower frequencies ε′ of ε′ polarization is of Maxwell–Wagner interfacial polarization but at higher frequencies, it levels off. The behavior of conductivity (σAC) tends to acquire constant values approaching it DC values. The values of σAC was increased after doped GO with exponential increase after the critical value of frequency. All nanocomposites behaved the same fashion revealing that a higher number of polarons were getting added to conducting pool in composites as graphene content was increased. Conduction mechanism appeared to be getting expedited with increasing frequency due to fact that increase in frequency enhances polaron hopping frequency. Keywords: Nanocomposites, Graphene oxide, FT-IR, X-ray, AC conductivity