A novel strategy for the controlled synthesis of silver halide/polyaniline nanocomposites with different polyaniline morphologies

Abstract

Silver halide/polyaniline nanocomposites with different polyaniline morphologies, i.e., nanotubes and nanofibers, were successfully synthesized simply based on the general chemical oxidation polymerization process of aniline in halide acid aqueous solution (i.e., HCl or HBr) with the presence of dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid (DBSA)-stabilized silver nanoparticles (NPs) as the precursors of silver halide NPs (i.e., AgCl or AgBr). X-ray diffraction (XRD) and FT-IR results confirmed the structures of resultant silver halide/polyaniline nanocomposites. TEM and SEM images demonstrated that AgCl or AgBr NPs were well-dispersed and embedded in the polyaniline matrix. The reasons for the new strategy for the preparation of silver halide/polyaniline nanocomposites were based on two key points: the first was the high reactivity of silver NPs with HCl or HBr to generate AgCl/AgBr NPs. Second, with the assistance of DBSA, polyaniline could be synthesized with various nanostructures, i.e., nanotubes and nanofibers.