Chemical sensing, thermal stability, electrochemistry and electrical conductivity of silver nanoparticles decorated and polypyrrole enwrapped boron nitride nanocomposite

Publication date: 24 March 2017
Source:Polymer, Volume 113
Author(s): Adil Sultan, Faiz Mohammad
In the present work, a nanocomposite of boron nitride (BN) and silver nanoparticles (Ag) enwrapped by polypyrrole (PPy) has been synthesized for first time via in situ chemical oxidative polymerization of pyrrole using ferric chloride. The structures of synthesized FeCl3 doped PPy, BN/Ag and PPy/Ag@BN nanocomposites were confirmed by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, field emission scanning electron microscopy and transmittance electron microscopy technique. Our investigations showed that the electrical response of PPy/Ag@BN nanocomposite which contains a conductor (Ag), an insulator (BN) and a semiconductor (PPy), was greater than that of polypyrrole. The electrochemical supercapacitive performance shows that FeCl3 doped PPy has higher capacitance than PPy/Ag@BN which might be due to higher conductivity of PPy as PPy/Ag@BN shows poor conductivity due to the insulating nature of BN. The newly synthesized nanocomposite showed rapid CO2 sensing and significantly improved DC electrical conductivity.

Graphical abstract

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