Preparation and characterization of conducting polymer/silver hexacyanoferrate nanocomposite

In this work, we present an alternative route to prepare silver hexacyanoferrate(II)/polyaniline (PANI) composite thin films. Differently from the electrochemical method, used to synthesize the conducting polymer film on a electrode surface, this new chemical route makes use of dialysis membrane as a solid support to synthesize the silver hexacyanoferrate(III) compound, and subsequently uses this composite membrane as oxidizing agent to polymerize the aniline monomer. The spectroscopic (UV-vis and IR region) and electrochemical characterization (cyclic voltammetry) indicates that the polymeric composite remains optically active and conductive. The X-ray analysis shows that the composite membrane/Ag₃Fe_III(CN)₆] has an crystalline structure that can be assigned to the Ag₃Fe_III(CN)₆] structure, and after reaction with aniline solution it became less crystalline. Additionally the SEM measurements shown that the reaction of silver ions with hexacyanoferrate(III) across the membrane results in a well defined and aliened Ag₃Fe_III(CN)₆] crystals and when this crystalline compound reacts with aniline monomer silver wire of 100 nm of diameter by 6 μm longer are formed together with the conducting polymer polyaniline/Ag_xFe_II(CN)₆] composite.