FABRICATION OF ELECTROSPUN NANOFIBERS OF TERNARY COMPOSITE POLYPYRROLE-CNT-MnO2

Abstract

Recently the ternary composite of conducting polymers, carbon based materials and metal oxides have gained the interest due to its enhanced and improved properties useful for various applications.In this paper we report the synthesis of ternary powder and the fabrication of the ternary composite electrospun nanofibers so as to use them in device application.Ternary composites of conducting polymer polypyrrole (PPY) and CNT-MnO2 have been synthesized by in-situ chemical polymerization.Electrospun nanofibers of ternary composite were fabricated by using polystyrene as carrier polymer.Analytical techniques such as FTIR, UV-VIS, and XRD are used to characterize the synthesized ternary composites.The ternary composite showed good interaction based on the shift to longer wavelengths in the electronic transition, indicating the interaction between PPY and CNT-MnO2 as observed in their UV-VIS and FTIR spectra of powder as well as fibers.Crystallinity of MnO2 in ternary composite was confirmed from XRD results.The SEM images of synthesized ternary composites reveal dispersion of polymer over CNT and the SEM images of fiber indicates the diameter of fibers in the range of 100-300nm.