Structural characterization and dielectric properties of ternary polyaniline/berlin blue/ruthenium dioxide nanocomposite

Abstract

A ternary nanocomposite composed of polyaniline/berlin blue/ruthenium dioxide, i.e. PANI/BB/RuO2 was synthesized through a one-pot process using ammonium persulfate as a strong oxidizing agent in H2SO4 medium. The structure, morphology, thermal and optical properties of unary PANI, BB, RuO2, and ternary PANI/BB/RuO2 nanomaterials were analyzed through FTIR, XRD, FESEM, TGA, and UV-Vis techniques. The FTIR and XRD studies confirmed the formation of ternary nanocomposite. FESEM analysis revealed the homogenous structure with uniform distribution of PANI, BB, and RuO2 nanoparticles in the ternary nanocomposite. From UV-Vis studies, a low optical band gap value was obtained for PANI/BB/RuO2 nanocomposite in comparison to PANI nanoparticles. Further, the dielectric behavior of the unary and ternary nanomaterials was analyzed through various parameters such as dielectric constant, dielectric loss, real and imaginary parts of electric modulus in the frequency range of 10 Hz−1 MHz by varying the temperature. It was found that ternary PANI/BB/RuO2 nanocomposite exhibits high dielectric constant and electric modulus (150°C) compared to unary nanoparticles. Hence, PANI/BB/RuO2 can serve as a suitable dielectric material for energy storage devices such as in solid-state capacitors.