Characterizations and Significantly Enhanced Dielectric Properties of PVDF Polymer Nanocomposites by Incorporating Gold Nanoparticles Deposited on BaTiO₃ Nanoparticles

Abstract

Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) nanocomposites were fabricated by incorporating BaTiO3 nanoparticles (particle size of ~100 nm, nBT), which were deposited by Au nanoparticles (nAu) with an average particle size of 17.8 ± 4.0 nm using a modified Turkevich method. Systematic characterizations on the synthesized nAu-nBT hybrid nanoparticles and nAu-nBT/PVDF nanocomposites with different contents of a filler were performed. The formation of nAu-nBT hybrid nanoparticles was confirmed with the calculated nAu:nBT ratio of 0.5:99.5 wt.%. The homogeneous dispersion of nAu and nBT in the PVDF polymer was obtained due to the interaction between the negative surface charge of the nAu-nBT filler (compared to that of the nBT) and polar β-PVDF phase, which was confirmed by the zeta potential measurement and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, respectively. A significantly increased dielectric permittivity (ε′ ~ 120 at 103 Hz) with a slight temperature-dependent of nAu-nBT hybrid nanoparticles is an attractive method to improve the dielectric properties of a PVDF polymer for dielectrics applications.

Keywords

• BaTiO₃
• Turkevich method
• zeta potential
• DSC
• polymer nanocomposites