Page 566 - Polymer-based Nanocomposites for Energy and Environmental Applications

Hybrid materials based on polymer nanocomposites for environmental applications 519

PEDOT chains
+
MWCNTs-PEDOT-Pt NPs

+

O +
O
S + 2.0 V
2 5
H 2 O + C H OH +
O
O O
S
+
S O
EDOT
+
/F:glass SnO /F:glass
SnO 2 2
Fig. 19.6 Preparing process of trielement PEDOT/MWCNT-Pt nanocomposite.
Reproduced with permission from Wang HY, Wang FM, Wang YY, Wan CC, Hwang BJ,
Santhanam R, et al. J Phys Chem C 2011;115:8439–46.

PEDOT/PSS or indium-doped tin oxide (ITO) substrates, which were used as efficient
counter electrodes for platinum-free DSSCs.
Pt nanoparticle-attached MWCNTs were mixed with EDOT monomer and treated
with ultrasonication to achieve a good suspension [75]. The polymerization of EDOT
was carried out using potentiostatic polarization (+2.0 V) for 1 min, and the resulting
layer was dried in an oven to obtain the PEDOT/MWCNT-Pt nanocomposite film, as
shown in Fig. 19.6.
The in situ synthesis of Ag-epoxy nanocomposite by visible light photoinduced
process was reported [76]. The visible light photoinitiator camphorquinone was
used to generate electron-donating radicals upon photolysis. Subsequent oxidation
of these radicals to the corresponding cations in the presence of silver
hexafluoroantimonate leads to the simultaneous formation of Ag nanoparticles and
initiation of cationic polymerization of the epoxy resin, resulting in cured
Ag-epoxy nanocomposites.

19.2.3 Characterization methods
Once hybrid composites are prepared by miscellaneous methods mentioned above,
the next stage is to characterize those composites with different analytic tech-
niques. In this part, we mainly describe some commonly used techniques to inves-
tigate the nature of composites through morphological study and spectroscopic
analysis.