Development of Conducting Polyaniline-Gold Nanocomposites

Abstract

In the present thesis work, a new renewable resource amphiphilic surfactant was developed and utilized as structure directing agent-cum-dopant for gold nanoparticles, polyaniline nanofibers, gold-polyaniline nanocomposites. Gold and aniline forms self-redox couple, gold was reduced into gold nanoparticles and aniline was simultaneously oxidized to polyaniline nanofibers. Both emulsion and interfacial route were explored for the nanocomposites synthesis. Detailed morphology analysis, photophysical characterization and X-ray diffraction studies revealed that the nanocomposites produced by the interfacial route were more superior than that of the emulsion routes. The nanocomposites produced in the interfacial route were found to be highly crystalline, ordered and showed well-defined lamellar packing in solid state. The approach demonstrated here is a very potential synthetic methodology for the development of conducting polymer-gold nanocomposites which have potential applications in optoelectronics and sensors.