A comparative study of polyaniline/MWCNT with polyaniline/SWCNT nanocomposite films synthesized by microwave plasma polymerization

In this work, a comparative study is reported between the nanocomposite films synthesized by in-situ microwave plasma polymerization of aniline monomer in the presence of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and that in the presence of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs).SEM and AFM were employed to characterize the nanocomposite films and to study their surface morphology and roughness. It was observed that the morphology, as well as the roughness, showed variation with the kind of CNTs that were used. Whereas XRD and SEM revealed a homogeneous coating of PANI on the CNTs, showing that carbon nanotubes were well dispersed in the polymer matrix. Furthermore, the SEM images indicating the formation of the core-shell SWCNT-PANI structure which is an ordered composite structure that has a strong effect on electrical conductivity. The FTIR spectra confirm that PANI-chains are bonded to CNTs. Films conductivity was examined by Hall measurements; where PANI/CNT nanocomposite films exhibited highly improved conductivity of 7.8 S/cm for film that used plasma functionalized MWCNTs of 1.5 wt% loading percentage and 25 S/cm for film that used plasma functionalized SWCNTs of the same loading percentage, compared to that of 10(-8) S/cm for pure PANI film.