Cerium dioxide/polyaniline core-shell nanocomposites

The preparation of CeO2/polyaniline (CeO2/PANI) core-shell nanocomposites via chemical oxidation of aniline using CeO2 as an oxidant is reported. TEM, TGA, FT-IR, XPS, and conductivity measurement are used to characterize the resulting composites. TEM measurements reveal that the shape of PANI/CeO2 nanocomposites is different from CeO2 nanoparticles and fibular PANI oxidized with soluble oxidant. Electron diffraction (ED) patterns of CeO2/PANI nanocomposites reveal single crystal of CeO2. FT-IR spectra confirmed the formation of PANI; the amount of PANI in the nanocomposites is estimated by TGA results. The conductivities increase with the increasing ratio of PANI/CeO2. XPS results reveal that in the nanocomposites Ce4+ of CeO2 is reduced to Ce3+. In addition, the degree of protonation of polyaniline obtained from N 1s XPS results in cerium dioxide/polyaniline composites is about 48.52%.